‘Rival Right’ went wrong last year. But BYU and Utah are trying again

Intense passion that comes with the Utah-BYU football rivalry manifests itself with taunts, verbal altercations and sometimes physical aggression before, during and even after the game.

Hostilities occur despite the schools’ best efforts to turn down the temperature on one of the oldest and most storied rivalries in the country dating back to 1896.

Poor sportsmanship and bitter feelings on both sides have marred classic battles on the field.

Take last year, for example.

One of the most heated games in recent memory ended on a controversial call at Rice-Eccles Stadium before the largest crowd in Utah football history, with BYU pulling out a last-second win.

Utah athletic director Mark Harlan took the microphone in the press area to lambaste the referees, saying the game was “absolutely stolen from us.” BYU players taunted Utah fans in the end zone. A fan was arrested for throwing a water bottle that hit a BYU cheer coach in the head.

A bright spot in the ugly ending was Utah tight end Landen King picking up trash fans had thrown onto the field.

‘Rival Right’ take two

All that after Utah President Taylor Randall and BYU President Shane Reese made a plea during rivalry week last year for fans to avoid rude behavior and personal attacks when cheering for their team.

The two presidents started “Rival Right,” a campaign, including a one-minute video, to quell the animosity that has built up between the two schools in recent years. The motto urges fans to “be respectful, be competitive, while keeping it lighthearted.”

Undaunted by or perhaps because of last year, Randall and Reese launched the initiative again this week ahead of the big game Saturday in Provo.

“As one of the nation’s top rivalries when Utah and BYU meet, the whole state feels it,” Randall said in a statement. “When we ’rival right,’ we celebrate what makes the match-up special. It’s the shared passion, fierce competition and mutual respect we have for one another.”

Randall and Reese released a new 30-second spot that conveys the respect, competitiveness and lightheartedness they’re seeking from fans.

“We all want our team to win, but sometimes the game gets the better of us,” Randall says in the video.

“We owe it to ourselves, our friends and our community to treat each other with respect,” Reese says.

The video closes with them saying, “Because when we lift each other, we rival right.”

Civility begins with me?

The presidents’ campaign isn’t the first effort to bring civility to the BYU-Utah game. There have been several efforts over the years but none seemed to make much difference.

In 2015, BYU fan Seth Barrus started a change.org petition before the Utes and Cougars met in the Las Vegas Bowl. At the time, the teams didn’t play each other every year because Utah was in the Pac-12 and BYU was an independent.

“While it’s true that the hate and bitterness has reached new levels in the past decade, I believe the game can be saved. Saved from the vitriol, the pettiness, the anger, the hate, the rudeness, the viciousness, the spitefulness, the nastiness, the maliciousness, and even the violence. It’s a small minority on each side that has ruined this game for many of the rest of us," the petition stated.

It asked online signers to commit to kindness, civility and treating others the way you want to be treated.

The petition had a grand total of 321 supporters.

Lesson learned

For his part, Harlan apologized to BYU coach Kalani Sitake and then-BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe the day after the 2024 game.

“Reflecting, I felt like it took away from their victory and the hard-earned victory of those student-athletes in that program,” Harlan told the Deseret News two months after the rant.

“I think that night, obviously, I reacted emotionally and my frustrations were expressed in a way that was not worthy of a true leader of a program of this stature. And certainly as any leader should, you learn and grow from those experiences.”

Harlan said, “You learn and grow as I ask our student-athletes and staff to do in these situations. I was not a great example of that, but certainly I feel that I have learned from it and look forward to continuing this great rivalry in the right way.”

At least one area where Utah and BYU fans can work together is in tackling hunger.

To foster friendly competition among fans, the two schools kicked off an annual food drive Oct. 1 that runs through Nov. 4.

“Whether you cheer for the Utes or the Cougars, we can all cheer for full bellies and nutritious meals," according to the website.