Anybody else bothered by the fact that Utah and BYU, the fiercest of college football rivals inside and out of the Big 12, are slated to play one another on Oct. 18? That’s right, Saturday, Oct. 18. That’s what the conference schedule, released on Tuesday, spells out.
There BYU is, playing the Utes at LaVell Edwards’ place, stuffed between facing Arizona the week before in Tucson and Iowa State the week after in Ames. La-dee-frickin-da, right? And there Utah is, playing the Cougars on the road, between playing host to Arizona State the week prior and Colorado the following week.
Scheduling is complicated, we get it. But the Big 12 has continued to disrespect the rivalry game, the biggest game of the year around here, by reducing it to a mere speed bump on its regular agenda. It’s just one more game, normalized. It’s like a clueless chef serving up an assortment of sandwiches on a plate, making no real distinction between which is liverwurst, which is PB&J, which is fried bologna, which is cucumber and mayo, which is anchovies, and which is thinly sliced, delectably prepared Japanese Kobe Beef.
It’s all the same.
But it’s not the same.
Granted, some games build in importance depending on how the season unwinds, which opponents distinguish themselves as presenting the greatest challenge. But the Utah-BYU is almost always a challenge, no matter who’s doing what. That much was clearly on display this past season, when the Cougars were fighting for a spot in the league championship game and the Utes wound up thrashing around like a hooked perch in a bucketful of the day’s catch. It didn’t matter. That game was an absolute brawl that came down to the last seconds to determine a victor. And when BYU won, we all know what followed — Utah’s athletic director pitching a fit for everyone to see. The whole thing was embarrassing for the university, but that kind of emotion doesn’t typically bubble up in most games. If the rivalry game was just another contest, stuff like that wouldn’t happen.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Brigham Young Cougars wide receiver Chase Roberts (2) as Utah hosts BYU, NCAA football in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024.
It did on the night of Nov. 9, 2024, when the Utes fell by the count of 22-21.
That was bad enough, the rivals facing each other in the second week of November, what with both BYU and Utah still having another three regular-season conference games to play, the Cougars having what turned out to be an additional game against Colorado in the Alamo Bowl.
Maybe fans of the rivalry game are just satisfied to have it played at all, on any week in any month after the nonsense that took place in the latter years of Utah being in the Pac-12 and BYU competing as an independent. The excuses that were made for skipping the rivalry game, mostly on account of the Utes not wanting to play it, were weak. And some highfalutin Utah officials, coaches and fans took great pleasure in insisting that, despite the hundred-game history of the rivalry, a history that extended back to long before any of them were born, the Utes no longer needed to play BYU because they had competitively blown so far past having to do so. Not only were the Utes principally superior to the Cougars, so it was said, the game was more a nuisance than a necessity.
All of which was complete horse spit, perpetuated by a number of loudmouthed, pompous, mistaken …
Assessments.
Assessments that were even worse than arrogant, they were blinded by a kind of warped recency bias, to the point of ignoring the importance of history between two schools that will always be rivals for many reasons, foremost among them the fact that they are located 50 miles apart.
So now, we can complain not about if the game happens, but when it happens, a considerable upgrade in debate. The only advantage to the game being played in the middle of October is that maybe the weather will be better. But at some point, certainly for as long as BYU and Utah play in the same league, and perhaps even after, if they were ever to separate again, the game should be played later in the schedule, preferably the last week of the regular season.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU players celebrate with fans as Utah hosts BYU, NCAA football in Salt Lake City on Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024.
With what could be at stake for one team or the other or maybe both, because of the expanded — and possibly further expanding — College Football Playoff, the stakes at that juncture could be beyond large.
The best way to make a huge game even huger is to place it where it once was, where it should be, punctuating a regular season like an exclamation point at the end of a declarative sentence!
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