Even before Cam Rising and the Utes had entered the Big 12, Chris Lambert wanted them out.
Lambert, a hardcore West Virginia fan and staunch Big 12 supporter, had had enough of the arguments, rumors and banter from the Utah fans he’d engaged with online. So he took matters into his own hands, made a petition and tried to rally some support.
The “Petition to Expel the University of Utah from the Big 12 Conference” was mostly — though not entirely — a joke, Lambert admits now.
“The Big 12 is the island of misfit toys,” Lambert, who goes by InsideTheBig 12 on X, told The Salt Lake Tribune. “The teams that are in the Big 12 right now are there because they have no other choice.
“At least 80% of the Utah fans I interacted with on Twitter have an attitude and an ego that they are better than the Big 12. And my very first thought, and the thought of a lot of Big 12 fans, is, ‘We don’t need this.’ ”
But can you really fault Utah fans for being a little arrogant right now?
The Utes haven’t had a losing season in more than a decade. They’ve won two Pac-12 titles and been to the Rose Bowl in consecutive seasons under head coach Kyle Whittingham.
As they enter the Big 12, Utah is widely regarded as the favorite to win the conference alongside new conference foes Oklahoma State, Kansas State and Colorado.
Even the creators of the EA Sports College Football 25 video think Utah is the best team in the Big 12: The Utes were the only team in the conference to land in the top 10 of the developer’s overall team rankings, coming in at No. 10 with a 88 overall rating.
That hasn’t stopped Big 12 fans like Lambert from lashing out at the Utes.
“The Big 12 didn’t need Utah. Utah needed the big 12,” Lambert said. “It needed a home, and we were happy to have Utah because they add value to the Big 12, because it has the smallest footprint in college football. … Now I have Utah fans tweeting at me that the Utes are the flagship program in the Big 12.”
But for months now, Ute fans have seemed to find themselves in online fights with fans from the other 15 programs in the Big 12, their spats popping up all over X and other popular message boards.
One anonymous college football observer who runs the popular Message Boards Genius (MBG) account on X, has been watching it all with intrigue.
On June 12, MBG posted a take from a Utah fan account on X, that stated the “Utes leaving (the Big 12) would be nearly as bad as Texas & OU with nobody left to step up from another league.”
It’s the kind of comment the aggregator says he sees often online.
“Their entire image of themselves was kind of shaped around being better than BYU in terms of their conference affiliation with the Pac-12,” MBG told The Tribune. “They were the one team in the state that was in a P5 conference making more money and on a national stage, more so than others. They seem to have gotten a little bit of a big head.”
The man Message Board Geniuses — a Utah State University alum — finds it “funny” that the Utes are in the same conference as BYU now.
“I think there was some hope, at least on Twitter and on the message boards, that they were going to end up in something not named the Big 12,” MBG said. “I don’t think they wanted to be on an even playing field with BYU in terms of conference. And, so there has been a lot of holding their nose up to the Big 12 fan bases.”
But he also knows that those fans don’t represent the entirety of the Utah fanbase. He thinks the fans that don’t migrate on the toxic threads of Twitter and message boards are excited to join the Big 12 but will miss the experience of the Pac-12.
A false report about Utah flirting with the Atlantic Coast Conference — and the fan reaction that followed online — is what prompted the Big 12 supporter Lambert to create his anti-Utes petition in the first place.
Since creating the petition, Lambert has accrued more than 450 signatures.
Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark walks on the field in the first half of the Big 12 Conference championship NCAA college football game between Oklahoma State and Texas in Arlington, Texas, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
As Utah gears up for its first Big 12 season, Lambert expects there to be a “culture shock” for Ute fans, as they face hostile crowds at Kansas State, Oklahoma State and more.
Lambert is especially excited for Utah to travel to Morgantown. When the Mountaineers joined the Big 12 from the Big East in 2012, they started the season 5-0 — including back-to-back wins against Texas and Baylor — before losing five straight contests to Big 12 foes.
He envisions a similar fate for the Utes.
“They’ll learn very quickly that this conference is a lot better than they thought it was,” Lambert said. “They’ll run through the same thing. I’m pretty sure they’ll blame the coach and players in the middle of it. But eventually you begin to appreciate what a football conference the Big 12 is.”
While it will certainly be an adjustment for Utah fans to swap L.A. for Lubbock and Seattle for Stillwater, the Big 12 is home for now.
And Lambert suggests disappointed Utes fans get comfortable.
“Utah has to look in the mirror,” Lambert said. “They’re not going to the Big Ten. They’re not going to the SEC. The Big 12 is the best they’re going to get, and they better make the best of it.”
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