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SALT LAKE CITY -- A member of the San Diego State football broadcast team is apologizing after a hateful rant against BYU on his talk show.
Thursday afternoon, color analyst Chris Ello, who is also an early afternoon host on radio station XTRA in San Diego, said BYU has no honor, is "100 percent hypocritical," and that BYU players make racial slurs.
"I have talked to dozens and dozens of San Diego State players over the years who will tell you without fact, or without argument, that BYU is the dirtiest, slimiest most ill-behaved football team that they play every single year," Ello said. "The racial comments that are delivered during games -- which would get people arrested in most parts of the world, or at least get the crap beat out of them -- BYU is nothing but a front for utter hypocrisy."
Ello made the remarks after learning a BYU employee was allowed to work in the replay booth and a call on a J.J. Di Luigi fumble was missed during last Saturday's game between the two schools in Provo.
BYU won that game 24-21. Ello acknowledged BYU played harder and probably would have won anyway, but said he was "so incredibly angry."
"I hate BYU and I hate everything they stand for because they are nothing but 100 percent hypocritical," Ello said. But by Friday, Ello had changed his tune. He told KSL Newsradio he owed an apology to a lot of the people in Provo for "the things I said, or in the way that they were said."
He further apologized on his radio show.
"A lot of what I said on my radio show was kind of drawn from emotion and a lot of frustration -- emotion that, I think, I feel and a lot of San Diego State people feel," Ello said. "That said, anytime you let emotion enter into it, I think you say a lot of things that can go offline, go off-course, and I think a lot of my emotional comments went so far off the course that they kind of missed the target I was intending."
Ello went on to say he probably will never "be a big BYU fan" and "that's probably never going to change."
"My intention was not to attack BYU, but more to attack this particular situation," Ello said.
Still, Ello didn't back down from his allegations of racial slurs.
Duff Tittle, BYU associate athletic director over communications, declined comment Friday.
Ello's Facebook page was slammed by dozens of comments Friday.
Tensions between fans and broadcasters of the two schools have been running higher in the past year.
In January for a basketball game in San Diego, SDSU fans dressed as LDS missionaries complete with white shirts, name tags and bike helmets. The students also chanted, "You're still Mormon." One sign read, "Jimmer [Fredette], which wife gave you mono?"
A BYU fan told the Deseret News at the time he received an email from SDSU's interim athletic director saying the school planned to address student section conduct.
Attempts to get a response from the San Diego State athletic department Friday were unsuccessful.
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E-mail: aadams@ksl.com.
