The Passion of the Game: BYU Vs Utah

Thanksgiving is always a great week and perhaps the best of the year. School is reduced to only a couple of days. We get to stuff ourselves with great food. There are NFL games and college football. There is even basketball to watch. Everyone is motivated to get up early and play in the cold to win a Turkey bowl.

The best part of the week however, has to be the BYU-Utah rivalry game. This may be last year that it will have all the drama. JJ previously posted a nice peace about it, but it misses a little bit of the, shall we say, passion of the game.

Most recently, we all remember Max Hall's infamous words.


Hall was no the first to express his true feelings. In fact, it was who ever the Utah coach before coach McBride coached at Utah. The hate comments have been thrown from both sides, but it seems that only the ones from BYU really stick. The one I chuckle about most was uttered by Lenny Gomes (Gregor) after a BYU loss in the 90's. "Typical Utah bull (expletive)," said Gregory. "All those (Utes) think that's all there is to life. But when I'm making $50,000- $60,000 a year, they'll be pumping my gas. They're low-class losers."

But the hate goes both ways (check out comments at 0:32)


Wow, since he was born, those are string words. But make no mistake, the fans and cheerleaders have also taken notice. Check out the beginning of this clip.

Cheerleaders are generally pretty buff. I don't think that I would mess with one of them.

The players hate each other on the field.


Fans waste time making up songs:


The list goes on and on about the expressed passion in this rivalry. Bronco Mendenhall stated Monday that he hoped for more "civility" from both fan bases. I would have to agree. The passion is great, but when the story lines from the football games are about acts of hate (dumping beer on people, fights in the stands, etc) it may have gone too far. The game should be the culmination of the season for the players. Has the hate gone too far?

The most disappointing part about all of this though, is that it is the minority that ruins it for the rest. I recognize that most are civil about it. But when emotions run high, people do things that they later regret. The fans make the rivalry what it is. It is one of the best in the country. Lets lock up the knuckle heads on both sides.

Here's to an awesome finale of the clash of the top MWC opponents.