The BYU-Utah rivalry is one of the oldest in the college sports world. The first football game between the two schools took place in 1896 in Salt Lake City, where the Utes won 12-4.
Looking more recently into the past brings up the always-meaningful football game between Utah and BYU in the Mountain West Conference. The matchup often seemed to have big implications for which team would win the MWC Championship. Those days are long gone, though.
In 2011, Utah accepted an invitation to become a member of the Pac-12 conference. In that same year, BYU also departed from the MWC and became an Independent in the sport of football, while joining the West Coast Conference for all other sports. After all those years, the teams were not just breaking away from an athletic conference — they were breaking away from each other.
BYU junior Cam Hurst voiced a regretful opinion on the state of the rivalry.
“I feel like it is still there. I think it’s disappointing we don’t play each other anymore — it’s not the same,” Hurst said.
Saying the rivalry is not the same is an accurate statement. Much of the rivalry that BYU feels has been lost in the sense of having one game against a particular opponent — Utah — that could really make a football season.
Josh Brown, an intern with BYU’s sports marketing department, talked about how the team could be having a tough season, but their perspective could change with just one game.
“You beat Utah, and everything is well in Cougar nation,” Brown said.
That realization is one of the tough byproducts of this break-up. What was once a meaningful game between the two teams that many times had a conference championship at stake is now coming close to extinction.
“There’s a lot of fans, including myself, that don’t want to accept it,” Brown said.
Both sides can attest that the trash talk and debating of which team is better just isn’t the same when you don’t have a game to settle it with. Many BYU students want the chance to compete with Utah again, especially after seeing the success Utah has had this year.
“The perspective of BYU is, ‘Man, we want to play them again,’ ” Brown said.
The BYU student body and fans will get their wish, but they will have to wait until Sept. 10, 2016. The Cougars will visit Rice-Eccles Stadium on that day to play a game that fans on both sides will have waited two years to see.
As for the present, the Utes and Cougars will get to further their rivalry in basketball when Utah travels to the Marriott Center on Dec. 10.
 
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