A few weeks before the Pac-12′s collapse, Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham questioned the rivalry between BYU and Utah.
The schools’ football teams didn’t play in 2022 and weren’t scheduled to play in 2023. The cadence of the in-state game had been altered and Whittingham saw the health of the matchup waning.
“Not quite the same feel that it’s had,” Whittingham said, comparing it to the days when BYU and Utah were in the same conference and played every year.
Soon enough, that will no longer be an issue.
Utah will enter the Big 12 next year, rejoining its longtime foe in the same conference. After over 12 years apart — with Utah in the Pac-12 and BYU in independence — a new chapter is about to be written.
“I’m really excited,” BYU head coach Kalani Sitake said. “I think the conference got a lot stronger. Excited [Utah is] going to be on our schedule consistently. So I’m looking forward to it. I think those schools that joined, it is going to be a lot of fun.”
Utah and BYU have spent most of the last century in the same conference. The two schools played yearly in the Mountain West Conference from 1999-2010. Before that, they were in the Western Athletic Conference from 1962-98. And they traveled together throughout the Mountain States Athletic Conference (1938-62) and Rocky Mountain Conference (1922-37) before that. Overall, Utah holds a 59-42-4 edge over BYU in the schools’ 105 meetings.
But since the two schools split affiliations back in 2010, the rivalry game hasn’t been played each year. It wasn’t scheduled in either the 2014 and 2015 regular seasons (though BYU and Utah met in the Las Vegas Bowl). The rivalry also skipped the 2020 COVID season.
There is a matchup slated for 2024. Assuming it remains on both teams’ schedules, it would be their first clash as members of the Big 12.
Not that Whittingham is focused on that now.
“It is something that is a positive in the big picture, obviously,” Whittingham said of Utah’s move to the Big 12. “But, again, all of our attention is on [this year].”
The BYU-Utah rivalry was one of the few in-state games brought together in this latest round of conference realignment. As Oregon, Washington, Utah, Arizona, ASU and Colorado left the Pac-12, it posed threats to a number of marquee games.
The status of the Apple Cup (Washington-Washington State) and the Civil War (Oregon-Oregon State) are in flux. The schools have said they will keep playing each other, but nothing is on the books. Notably, BYU and Utah also said they would keep playing back in 2009. But not being in the same conference hurt those chances.
Sitake, though, said he wasn’t concerned about college football potentially losing those consistent rivalry games.
“Change can be good,” Sitake said. “I know there are people that are upset with tradition being lost. But that is just kind of what society is. Things move, they adapt and evolve. Things change. College football will be just fine. We are all adapting to whatever happens to conference affiliation and realignment. College football playoff, NIL, all that stuff we work with. The interest, the excitement, in college football has always been there.”
This is not the first wave of realignment that has torn apart rivalries. Texas and Texas A&M were once split up when the Aggies went to the SEC. Kansas and Missouri had the same fate.
University of Utah President Taylor Randall said he is excited Utah and BYU will be the exception to this rule.
“I’m a fan, a lifelong fan of this university,” Randall said. “And I know we’re going to get questions about the renewed rivalry with Brigham Young University. For me, it’s always been fun. We’re looking forward to that. We’ve appreciated the way we’ve worked together over the years when we’ve not been in the same conference. We’re certainly looking forward to the years where we will be.”
Sitake, who was Whittingham’s defensive coordinator from 2012-14, said he has not called his old boss about Utah’s move to the Big 12 yet. Both are in the middle of fall camp.
“We are all about the Pac-12 this year and this season. That’s it,” Whittingham said. “But excited we got a landing place.”
