Ben Anderson: New Utah athletic director right to extend Utah and BYU series

SALT LAKE CITY — BYU and the University of Utah announced an extension of their college football rivalry Monday morning, adding two years to the existing rivalry through 2024. The extension was met with mixed reactions from the Utah fanbase, many of whom have soured on the matchup with their longtime rival.

The argument against scheduling the game is simple and not without merit. When BYU and Utah were in the same conference, they had to play every year, and often the game would determine the conference champion. Now, with Utah moving into the PAC-12, and BYU opting for football independence, playing the game does little to improve the Utes' pedigree nationally. In 2017, the Utes played and beat BYU, and dropped from number 23 in the Coaches Poll to 24.

Simply put, some Utah fans don’t think BYU carries enough cachet to be worth playing, regardless of whether the Utes win or lose, regardless of the close proximity between the two schools. There is existing precedent for this perspective, as Utah is similarly close to Utah State, whom they haven’t scheduled since 2015.

Former Utah Athletic Director Chris Hill had become a central figure in the controversy surrounding the rivalry game over the last decade after the Utes and Cougars took a hiatus from regular-season games in 2014 and 2015. With Dr. Hill retiring, and Mark Harlan taking over the role of athletic director at Utah, the future of the rivalry could have once again been in doubt.

Wisely, Harlan extended the life of the rivalry before it could become a controversy.

Harlan took over a different program than Hill coming into Utah. While BYU dominated the football rivalry over Utah throughout the '80s, any subsequent success the Utes would have against the Cougars was going to look like major growth for the Utes. Through years of negotiating, playing, and eventually surpassing BYU from an athletic standpoint, Hill had earned the right to put his reputation on the line over the rivalry game.

While Harlan has more than earned the job with his prior successes, waging a battle against BYU for a football game five years down the line isn’t worth wasting the goodwill equity he’s been afforded in his first year on the job.

BYU, Utah extend annual rivalry series through 2024 season

The BYU and Utah football programs don't agree on much. But one thing they agree on is the importance of playing annually, as announced jointly Monday morning.

Despite saying the right things about the rivalry when he took over the job, and during and after rivalry game itself, Harlan’s true views on the matchup may remain unknown. Like many Utah fans and his predecessor, Harlan must be weighing the pros and cons of playing BYU. Do wins over BYU outweigh a potential loss? Does the emotional cost of the game impact the schedule’s surrounding games? Does Utah gain more in recruiting by playing BYU or would it benefit by playing more road games in California or Texas? Is the blowback for scheduling the game a bigger headache than not scheduling the game?

Big picture questions will have to be answered in the coming seasons as well. Where is BYU from a conference perspective 10 years from now? Between 2023 and 2025, each of the five Power Five conferences will have to renegotiate their TV deals. Does that lead to an expansion of the conferences, potentially including BYU in the PAC-12 or Big-12? Does BYU rejoin the lower-level Mountain West Conference or join the American Athletic Conference, and how does that impact the scheduling?

These are all questions worth asking and legitimate questions for the future of the rivalry, but not questions Harlan needs to answer right now. In the future, if Harlan finds the list of cons outnumbers the pros, the rivalry could once again find itself in a hiatus, but until then, extending the rivalry was the right move.

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