Gordon Monson: BYU had best play its game and get out of Laramie as fast as it can

Kalani Sitake said something this week that nobody says in the run-up to playing football in Laramie, Wyo., and if they do say it, they don’t mean it.

“We’re going on the road again, looking forward to this matchup with Wyoming.”

Coach Pinocchio’s nose grew and blew through the closest window when he said it.

Laramie might be good for who it’s for … wranglers and ranchers and mountain men, cows and horses and antelopes — but that typically does not include visiting college football teams. Anybody who looks forward to going there is likely to be either disappointed or hit by a urine bag thrown from the stands at the opposing team’s sideline. Legendary BYU football coach LaVell Edwards once famously said something along the lines of, “I’d rather lose and live in Provo than win and live in Laramie.” This did not sit well with the town’s residents, but it wasn’t far from the truth.

The town, founded in the southeastern part of the state and becoming more prominent when the Union Pacific Railroad came through back in the 1860s, was named after an old trapper — Jacques La Ramée — who decades earlier vanished in the nearby mountains. According to Wikipedia, the settlement at its early origins, at least the ones after European-Americans showed up, was an almost cartoonish cliche of a lawless Hollywood frontier town, what with gun-toting bullies ruling the roost, stealing land from settlers and killing those who wouldn’t cooperate. That went on until John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and Clint Eastwood showed up … no, until a local rancher formed a vigilante group that rounded up the bad guys at the saloon they owned, a place called the “Bucket of Blood,” and lynched them down the road a piece.

Laramie grew from there, eventually becoming the home of the University of Wyoming, and that’s right where the state’s institution of higher education played their football as the Cowboys against all comers at the high elevation of 7,220 feet.

Wyoming is the school against which BYU has played more football games than all but two other opponents — Utah and Utah State, Sitake correctly noted.

“They have a passionate fan base,” he said, reflecting back on his days as a Cougar player. “It’s actually why college football is so good — the fans make it real. I know they love their team. They have a lot of pride in their team. I know they’re looking forward to this game, just like we are.”

And crash … there went another busted window.

The first part of that last sentence, though, is definitely true. Wyoming fans love playing and hating on BYU. They love hating on Utah, too. And they’ve made those feelings as clear as a tall, bright-blue afternoon sky looming over War Memorial Stadium, where the Cowboys have played their football for more than 70 years now. Unless the sky is not bright-blue, as it turns surly and gray on some football days, ushering in inclement winter weather, even in months like October, that can dump a few feet of ice and snow on your head, rip the skin off your face, and laugh at your pain. More on that in a minute.

I talked to one BYU player, a tough defensive lineman, back when the Cougars and Cowboys played on the reg in the same conference, and he said he’s never played in a more hostile environment, never heard more foul language hurled from the crowd, and that words weren’t ‘the only things hurled. Also, batteries, coins, beer and animal feces.

If that doesn’t paint the perfect picture of college football’s pageantry, what would?

I heard some of that stuff, too.

Obscenities shouted at visiting players that would scrape the mud off a shovel.

On the other hand, one year, I got to the stadium early and decided to walk over to a nearby field where Wyoming fans were enjoying some pregame tailgating. After strolling around, talking with folks, I came to the conclusion that some of the nicest people I’d ever met lived in Laramie and rooted for the home team. They didn’t seem like the feces-chucking types. Two fans, a husband-wife team that worked at the university, invited me over for a postgame barbecue. Salt of the Earth.

At the game a couple of hours later, what started out as a perfect fall day for perfect football, transformed into a monstrosity. The wind didn’t just stir, it stormed, it howled, turning 10-yard passes into pipe dreams. It was like playing football in a frigid hurricane on a field in Antarctica. In the latter part of the afternoon, it began snowing horizontally, in a manner I had never witnessed before. Driving home to Salt Lake City, a route on Interstate 80 that might normally take a fistful of hours to complete ended up taking a white-knuckled 14 hours. Cars and pickups slid here, there, everywhere. Eighteen-wheelers jackknifed all over the road and off it, too. Snow covered the freeway, but the real devil was the ice formed underneath.

I thought about what LaVell said often on that drive, straight through to when I pulled into my driveway at 8 o’clock the next morning, happy to be home, happier to be alive.

BYU has had some memorable battles with Wyoming through the years, but most of them of late have gone the Cougars’ way, including nine straight wins. Still, as Sitake said it, playing the Pokes at War Memorial is much more difficult than playing them in an environment where mud isn’t sheered off a shovel. BYU has been wise enough to stay away from the place for 15 years, but … it will be where it is on Saturday night.

Two bits of encouragement on that count — the last time the Cougars went to Laramie, they crushed the Cowboys, 52-0. And thus far this season, Wyoming is 0-2, having lost to Idaho and Arizona State and having been outscored en route, 65-20.

So, there’s that. If you gotta go to Laramie, this might be the year to do it.

“It’s going to be a fun game,” Sitake said. “We know it’s going to be a hostile environment. … We look forward to the game. It’s business. Go out and do what you’re supposed to do.”

And then, get out of Dodge as fast as you can.