I have been a Utah football fan long enough to remember when we were the Redskins and Utah State was our rival. BYU was simply no good back in the day. That changed in 1972 when BYU hired Lavell Edwards to be their coach. BYU won the WAC in his third year and BYU started to dominate the Utes. It was very ugly over the next 15 years.
The anger of the Ute nation was fueled in 1977 when BYU put Marc Wilson back into blowout game so he could break a passing record. Wayne Howard was very upset in his post-game interview with Bill Marcroft. He claimed he had never seen such poor sportsmanship and he would do everything in his power to turn things around. Apparently, a number of Cougar fans heard this and the claim is that when he walked out of the press box, a BYU fan spit on coach Howard. (I have no idea if someone really spit on him, but that was the story and it infuriated Utah fans. This could be a “beer throwing” story with no truth.)
Wayne and the Utes did win the next year 23-22. Coach Howard could never understand or accept that the majority of the people in Salt Lake were BYU fans. He didn’t like this and at the end of the 1982 season after going 8-2-1 he quit.
The 1980s were horrible for Ute fans. We not only lost every year except 1988, we were typically blown off the map. Running up the score just irritated Utah fans more. Added to that was some BYU fans brought religion into it and acted like any Mormon Ute fans were being disloyal to their church. (I think this was the minority of their fans, but they were very vocal and annoying.)
I remained a loyal Ute through all of that. I hated the snobbery of some BYU fans and the post-game digs they would try to get in. I had not hated BYU sports until the 1980s when it felt intolerable. I learned something during that time. I learned that I hated what some BYU fans said and did after killing the Utes. It hurt and I hated it. So, I never do that to my BYU friends today. I will tease and have fun with them pregame but never try to rub it in post-game. If they want to talk about it – fine, but I never search them out to rub it in. I still remember the pain of the 1980s and am not interested in inflicting the same on someone else.
I know some BYU fans are annoying, holier than thou and somewhat delusional. However, not all BYU fans are that way. I believe most are good people who simply are fans of their team. They want their program to be successful as we all want the Utes to be. Nothing wrong with that.
Our rivalry with BYU is unique because of religion and that many Ute fans (including me) are practicing Mormons. However, I have seen first hand the hatred that exists between Alabama and Auburn and Michigan and Ohio State. The hate between those institutions is much worse. I am one that believes that hating a person because of who they cheer for is nonsense. I may hate BYU football, but I do not hate their fans and in fact, have a very good relationship with many BYU fans.
I hope we destroy BYU on the field Thursday night, but do not wish anything bad to any of their fans, even the delusional ones.
Go Utes!!!
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