Reigniting one of college football’s best rivalries in BYU vs

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• Kyle Bonagura, ESPN Personnel WriterNov 7, 2024, 07:00 AM ET Close Covers college football.Joined ESPN in 2014.
• Participated In Washington State University.WHEN TOM HOLMOE showed up

in Provo to play football in 1978, his understanding of the BYU-Utah rivalry was next to nothing.He was not then a member of the Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he matured in Southern California enjoying the USC-UCLA competition with his sibling playing for the Bruins. So when the Cougars’ bus rolled up to Rice Stadium in Salt Lake City his freshman year, Holmoe was curious how the environment would determine up. He was redshirting, and BYU had currently clinched the WAC title, however the strength he felt on the sideline was unlike anything he had ever experienced.” It was a cold day, but it was hot on the field,”stated Holmoe, BYU’s athletic director since 2005

. BYU’s six-game winning streak in the rivalry ended that day, and while the Cougars would still be playing

in the first-ever Vacation Bowl– back when reaching a bowl game was a real achievement– it was a bitter tablet for Holmoe to swallow. He remembered a cartoon in a local paper minimizing the bowl quote in light of the competition loss. “It was not an excellent feeling, and that was my very first experience,”Holmoe said.Holmoe went on to win all 4 games he participated in– 3 with Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham as a fellow standout on defense– and over the past four-plus years has actually ended up being persuaded the “Holy War”is as extreme as any game in college football.Editor’s Picks 2 Associated”I love college football,”he said.” And I believe among the greatest features of college football is the competitions. I don’t understand where BYU-Utah ranks, I just know it’s one

of the fantastic rivalries

of all time

.” The first conference took place in 1896, and for the majority of its history, it was played as a conference game. After starting their early days in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, the schools moved as a pair to

the Horizon Conference( 1938), to the WAC (1962 )and, lastly, to the Mountain West(1999)before the Pac-12 came calling and pried Utah away before the 2011 season, ushering in BYU’s independent era and relocate to the Huge 12 last year.Those who have actually taken part in this competition over the past 13 years say the absence of conference stakes had no bearing on game day. In fact, Utah’s departure and elevation to Power 5 status introduced a new point of contention between the schools. Still, things were different. They began playing in September rather of November and– for the very first time considering that The second world war– took years off.” I think Utah attempted to decrease it a bit, since now they remained in the big leagues and BYU wasn’t, and I believe BYU fans seemed like they were being dissed a bit,”stated former BYU AD Val Hale, a lifelong BYU

fan who is composing a book about the 24 years he spent operating in the athletic department.”Utah was attempting to state,’Oh, this game isn’t that essential to us any longer.’ So, I think there was a bit of offense taken on the part of BYU fans. I believe some BYU fans would say that the Utah fans were a little bit snobbish, and were attempting to look down their noses at BYU due to the fact that we weren’t in the Pac-12 like they were.” Last summer season, the future of the rivalry was in jeopardy. Conference realignment has a nasty routine of breaking up competitions, and while it had currently been trying the custom in Utah, BYU’s relocate to the Huge 12 gave the Cougars less scheduling flexibility and less incentive to schedule a tough nonconference game.In a weird twist of fate, however, the Pac-12 collapsing produced a cause and effect that resulted in Utah signing up with the Big 12, reuniting the Utes and Cougars as conference rivals when again. On Saturday( 10:15 p.m. ET on ESPN), Utah hosts

No. 9 BYU in what might be the most substantial competition game for BYU in a generation, as a conference title will result in a berth in the College Football Playoff. Both schools will use their home uniforms in this competition game. Boyd Ivey/Icon Sportswire ONE OF THE first things neutral fans might notice from the game is that both teams will use their home uniforms: Utah in red; BYU in blue.It comes from Holmoe’s roots in Southern California. For numerous years, as UCLA and USC shared the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, they both donned

home uniforms. It’s a tradition that disappeared in 1982 when UCLA started playing home games at the Rose Bowl, however USC coach Pete Carroll brought it back in 2008, despite it being a violation of NCAA rules. The guideline changed in 2009, allowing both teams to use home uniforms, and right after Holmoe went to his counterpart at Utah, Chris Hill.” I said,’Among the excellent things about the USC-UCLA competition is they play in their home colors for every game. Let’s do it, ‘” Holmoe stated.”And he goes,’What do you indicate?’I state, ‘Well, you wear red, we’ll use blue no matter what the sport is or where the game’s played.’Therefore we began this tradition(in 2011), and it’s kind of enjoyable due to the fact that the color and pageantry of college football comes out.”For Utah natives like BYU captain Tyler Batty, the game’s significance is ingrained into their consciousness from a young age.”My earliest memory was most likely in grade school,” Batty stated at Big 12 media days this summertime.”Just me and a lot of good friends getting together at someone’s home and viewing the game. It’s not like you’re really enjoying that much of the game when you’re 10, 11 years old, however you’re figuring how competitive it is.

It’s quite legendary.”A few of the most famous minutes are just tangential to the results.In 1999, there was an infamous incident in which a BYU fan came by the railing from the stands and tried to tackle a male Utah cheerleader, who had actually been keeping up a flag.”The cheerleader got on top of him and started mauling him,”Hale stated. “Everyone in the stadium– 65,000 people– is seeing this. All I might see was someone pummeling someone on the ground.

I thought it was an usher.”So, I went diminishing the sideline– here’s the AD running down the sideline– and by the time I got down there it had actually been broken up. I went to speak to the Utah cheerleading coach and he was informing me what took place, and to this day there are still stories out there that I got in a battle with the cheerleader. You understand how stories get deformed and twisted.”Another strange minute that does not get twisted can be found in 2012, the year Utah fans rushed the field 3 times during and after the Utes’24-21 upset of then-No. 25 BYU. The first followed fans believed time had actually ended following an incomplete pass, when there was still 1 2nd left on the clock. The next came during a 51-yard missed field-goal effort, which set off a 15-yard penalty and gave BYU a second, more detailed basket attempt. When that a person failed, too, the fans rushed the field for a third time. Former Utah QB Alex Smith remembered how intense the rivalry games get in between these schools. George Frey/Getty Images UP UNTIL LAVELL Edwards was called the BYU head coach prior to the 1972 season, the rivalry was uneven in favor of Utah. Then, with Edwards at the helm for the next 29 years, BYU controlled the series.In 2001, the first year after Edwards retired, BYU took a 10-0 record into the game in Provo and routed 21-10 with 3:30 to play before Luke Staley, the ultimate Doak Walker Award winner, scored 2 touchdowns in the final minutes as the Cougars looked for to become the first nonpower-conference program to reach a BCS bowl.(They would lose three weeks later on at Hawai’i and miss out on the BCS.)When quarterback Alex Smith signed with Utah a number of months later on, the pendulum swung back in the Utes ‘favor. Smith’s intro into the competition

was similar to Holmoe’s: He originated from Southern California, didn’t know the history and viewed the first game, in 2002, from the sideline.”I think both groups were not great at that point, however I keep in mind thinking how crazy the game was,”stated Smith, who is now an NFL expert for ESPN.”Offered out and just how intense the game was for both sides. “When Urban Meyer was called coach at Utah the list below year, he turned up the heat on the competition, refusing to call BYU by name, describing them only as the “group down south.”Come competition time, the Utes were 8-2 and required to beat BYU to win the Mountain West title. The forecast called for a blizzard.”Simply calling it snow wouldn’t do it justice, “Smith said.”It was a total

whiteout blizzard, and our senior running back had gotten hurt, so we were down to a true freshman, I believe. I’ll never forget on the sideline, Urban resembled, ‘Hey, we’re gon na call your number a bunch. Just hold on to the football.’I think I had like 24 carries for 40 lawns or two, however we won the game 3-0 and it was incredible. Simply an ugly, unsightly game, however it didn’t matter. What an excellent drive back to Salt Lake from Provo. “The nothing intensified the frustration for BYU, which went into the game having scored in an NCAA-record 361 straight games dating

back to 1975– a streak that has actually since been passed by Michigan, Florida and TCU. “It was something we bragged about all the time at the end of every game, “Hale said.The next year, BYU’s see to Utah set the phase for among the best days in Utes history.”[ ESPN’s]’College GameDay’concerned Utah for the very first time ever. We had an opportunity to clinch our undefeated season, break the BCS, win our conference and beat BYU all at the same time, “Smith said. “Extremely special. Offered out crowd again, the entire nation is watching, to get the win and the students hurry the field and there are sombreros all over. Pretty impressive win and, once again, to do it versus BYU made it even sweeter. “BYU got some step of vengeance two years later with “Beck to Harline,

“an iconic finish that saw the Cougars win with an 11-yard touchdown pass from John Beck to Jonny Harline on the last play of the game that became called the” Answered Prayer.

” Then the Cougars followed that memorable win with another the next year, finest kept in mind for a fourth-and-18 conversion on a pass from Max Hall to Austin Collie, which triggered Collie to provide a famous line:”Magic happens.”After Utah relocated to the Pac-12 in 2011, BYU had a tough time conjuring that magic once again.”They started to take a few of our kids away on the recruiting trail since they became part of a [Power

5] conference,”Holmoe said.”And that was hard on us.” Utah won the first 8 games in the series after leaving the Mountain West, including a 2015 appearance in the Las Vegas Bowl, when the nonconference game was on

a two-year hiatus.BYU ended the losing skid with a 26-17 win in 2021– when Utah would go on to win the Pac-12 and play in the Rose Bowl– but that was the only meeting in the past 4 seasons.Had the Pac-12 stayed intact, infrequent matchups likely would have

remained the standard. Utah’s relocate to the Huge 12 this summertime changed that.

“The state gets extremely excited about that game, and it has actually been hit and miss the last several years,”Whittingham stated.” Now that we’re both in the same conference, and it’s going to be an annual thing. It will be the single biggest sporting occasion in the state of Utah every year. BYU QB John Beck belonged to an iconic finish to one of BYU’s wins in the series. Ken Levine/Getty Images WHEN BIG 12 teams gathered in Las Vegas in July, it was Utah that received all the preseason love. Utah was chosen as the favorite to win the conference, mostly in part due to the expected return of quarterback Camera Increasing, who led the Utes to Pac-12 titles in 2021 and 2022. BYU’s Darius Lassiter was complimentary of the Utes at the time, but released a caution ahead of their arrival to the Huge 12. “I think it’s going to be more of a surprise to them than what they might think,”he stated. “… It’s not a simple league at all. There are a lot of great groups here and then we simply included three other teams including themselves, so it is not going to be simply a walk in the park for them.”Possibly he undersold it.After beginning the season 4-0, Utah has actually dropped its past four and lost Rising to another season-ending injury. The Utes are 1-4 in the Huge 12, and their depressing offensive performances caused the departure of offensive organizer Andy Ludwig. At this point, if the Utes reach bowl eligibility it would be a surprise.”Certainly the seasons have gone in totally various instructions than what was expected at the beginning,”Whittingham said.”I think that reveals that those preseason rankings and ideas truly do not imply a whole lot.” BYU is the inverted example.The Cougars debuted at No. 9 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings Tuesday, and while there are engaging arguments for why they must be greater, it’s an excellent position for nearly the whole country.Playing spoiler isn’t what the Utes initially

had in mind, but it is a powerful incentive.”To own the state of Utah, to sour out those guys ‘season, it would be big for us and the group,”stated Utes running back Jaylon Glover, who also levied an expletive towards BYU in an interview with local reporters this week, for which he issued a follow-up apology on social media.Just as they were for Holmoe all those years earlier, the competition burns hot. And while pride has actually sufficed to sustain this rivalry, meaningful stakes make certain to turn up the heat.