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SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah and BYU play this Saturday.
That’s right, for the first time since 1958, it’s Rivalry Week in September.
Instead of beanies and parkas, grab your shorts and flip-flops. It was 85 degrees Monday.
The local college football landscape has changed quite a bit over the last year or so with Utah’s invitation to join the Pac-12 and BYU’s reactionary move to boldly claim its independence, and the rivalry game has been one of the main casualties of the changing football climate.
Saturday’s game marks the first time in 113 years Utah and BYU will play as non-conference opponents, and for only the fifth time in the last 33 years, the rivalry game will not serve as the season finale for both teams.
Instead of getting amped for the game on Saturday, instead of the typical buzz that surrounds the annual clash between the two teams, this week feels shockingly … normal. This means something.
Many people want the rivalry to end, citing venom between the two fan bases and the overall hate the game itself breeds among folks from both sides of the equation here in the state.
Many people believe we are full steam ahead into the era of modern college football “super conferences.” If this is the case, there will be no looking back, and the rivalry will most likely go away due to scheduling conflicts. Imagine that: Two teams that have played football against each other for over a century, a game that is imbedded in the DNA of Utah sports, simply fading away in the background, with little to no fanfare whatsoever.
So I ask you this:
Do you care?
I have been shocked at the answer we have received on the "Bill and Spence Show" to this simple question as we have discussed the monumental college football shift we’re witnessing with both Utah and BYU this season.
On one side you have Ute fans parading around town, basking in the glow of their recent admission into the elite BCS inclusion club. Boasting their new Pac-12 gear, rubbing it into the faces of their cohorts 45 minutes south, boldly proclaiming that as a result of their new conference, Utah no longer “needs” BYU.
For the foreseeable future, Utah’s schedule will automatically include built-in quality opponents and high-caliber games due to its Pac-12 affiliation. Including BYU on the schedule is akin to throwing the ostracized independent Cougars a bone as Ute fans mockingly laugh from high up in their ivory tower, suddenly finding themselves in the proverbial catbird seat.
On the other side you have BYU fans, shunned from a BCS conference invite thus far, also claiming they no longer need their century-old rival any longer. Owners of their own TV network seen in 60 million homes across the Unites States (and close to 200 million worldwide) and benefactors of a brand new eight-year partnership with the self-proclaimed “World Wide Leader in Sports” (ESPN), BYU has the platform and the cache to go at this alone.
“The world is our campus,” the age-old mantra echoed around BYU, now also includes the football team. If BYU can broadcast its own games in sparkling HD with state of the art production facilities, and if its game can be seen by millions around the world, with or without Utah, why give the boys up north a piece of the pie? And if the partnership with ESPN can help facilitate a schedule that features the likes of Notre Dame, Texas, Ole Miss, Boise State and Georgia Tech (among others), what’s the need for the suddenly high and mighty Utes anyway?
Personally, I disagree with both trains of thought.
I was raised in this rivalry. I have ties to both institutions. I attended the University of Utah, while all five of my younger siblings either graduated from or are currently attending BYU. I can’t remember a year in my entire life that hasn’t included the rivalry game in one form or another. And while I could do without some of the ugliness on the peripheral, I recognize it’s an inevitable part of a good old classic college football rivalry game.
You think Oklahoma fans would make room for Texas fans at the dinner table? Ohio State fans wouldn’t give a Michigan fan vinegar if he were dying of thirst. An Alabama fan is about to go to jail for (literally) applying herbicide to the famed oak trees at Auburn’s Toomer's Corner. Some of these people are lunatics. But they shouldn’t ruin the fun for the rest of us who realize it’s just a football game. Let them be the idiots.
I hope the rivalry game remains, even if it means we are forced to feign intensity when the swimming pool is still open. But there is a real chance in the coming years the rivalry game will quietly slip away, like a burglar in the night. So again, I pose the question to you:
Do you care?
