“We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.”
— Abraham Lincoln
The voice in my head is screaming, “Don’t go here … Don’t go here,” but I learned to ignore the voices in my head a long time ago.
BYU fans, at least some of them, are more than mildly upset, they are way mad at Kyle Whittingham for what he said the other day in an interview with Spence Checketts during the radio host’s afternoon-drive show on ESPN 700.
Yes, that’s right, the royal blue are royally chapped at the Utah football coach for the most basic of made-up reasons: arrogance.
What they perceive as arrogance, what they want to believe is arrogance.
They take offense to it, regardless of whether it’s actually given.
While discussing in a broader context the changes in college football and college sports in general, Whittingham was asked about the newly restored, the newfound “permanence” to the Utah-BYU rivalry game, now that the Cougars and Utes will be playing in the same league again, the Big 12, after the longtime series was interrupted a number of times while the schools were separated.
His answer, as is usually the case with Whittingham, was well thought out and truthful. He said: “Well, first of all, you use the word permanently. I can say it’s far from that. I think in two to three, maybe five years at the outside, everything’s going to change again. And so this may be just a quick couple years of the game returning and then everything is blown up again, and people go their separate ways.”
Angry BYU fans, as they expressed on social media, interpreted that response as an indication, a substantiation as they saw it, that Whittingham and Utah overall thinks it’s better than BYU, that after a few short years in the dust and clutter of the truck-stop league, the Utes will separate themselves again from the Cougars by being solely elevated to one of a couple super-conferences, presumed to be the SEC or the Big Ten.
That is not what Whittingham actually said. He did not give any indication that Utah would be lifted up and BYU would be left behind. He said, to reiterate, that “everything is blown up again, and people go their separate ways.”
It’s just as likely that Utah might be in one super-conference and BYU in another. Whittingham has been talking about super-leagues in college football being on the horizon for a decade now. This is nothing new.
I get it. A lot of BYU fans figure, if they’re going to dance, they want to dance with Utah, that both schools should make that a partnership, a priority. And since the Utes deserted them, left them all lonely, hanging out on the floor once before, they might relish the idea of doing it again.
Uh-huh. The rivalry game is a big deal around here. A lot of us writers and commentators have been huge proponents of keeping that game alive, even as … no, especially because … it’s been treated with lessened significance by the Utes since they were invited into the Pac-12 and BYU was not.
Whittingham mentioned that the game had lost some of its luster, its meaning, its intensity, its emotion and passion in recent seasons, given that Utah was focused on winning the Pac-12 and BYU was fiddle-faddling around with whatever it was playing for in independence. He did not exactly use the term fiddle-faddling, but the notion was clear.
What should also be noted is that a few sentences later in the interview, Whittingham said now that the game is back, “at least for the time being, we’ll rekindle that [intensity and passion].”
He added: “I think it’s good for the state of Utah, the bottom line is, it’s good for the state of Utah and the fans really enjoy it.”
It’s a natural part of the rivalry for some folks to get defensive and to read into every word that is spoken about it, from one side or the other, some sort of disrespect, some offense. Defense and offense.
And Whittingham is a smart man who knows exactly what he’s saying as he’s saying it, so there might have been some snark loaded into his specific words, but that wasn’t the thrust of his response. Truth was the main point. He’s fully aware of the upheaval in and around the game now, having just lived through the demise of what once seemed to be solid footing in the Pac-12. So, uncertainty is certainly fresh in his thoughts.
It’s no secret that Whittingham, who played at BYU and who’s felt every bit of the emotion and passion he spoke of inside the rivalry game, didn’t and doesn’t personally revel in the hubbub surrounding Utah-BYU. As competitive as he is, as effective as he’s been as a motivator, and as much success as his Utes have had against the Cougars over the past decade or so, he’d rather focus on the football than get caught up in twists and turns and turmoil.
He’s fully aware the rivalry game, as he said it, is good for the state, mostly good for the fans, whether or not he loves it himself.
Regardless of whether Whittingham gave offense or BYU fans just took it, no matter what old Abe said, maybe it’s all good. If it’s passion and intensity that help make an annual — “for the time being” — football game what it should be, no harm in one partner talking divorce straight into the grille of the other on the eve of the wedding.
It simply adds a little spice, a little fire, to the dance.
