This year’s BYU-Utah rivalry game is different. And for so many reasons

The BYU-Utah rivalry game has always featured a unique peculiarity, one absent in the nation’s top traditional football events like the Iron Bowl, the Red River Rivalry or the Jeweled Shillelagh.

But this year, the demarcation lines for Saturday’s Cougars-Utes game seem far more intense than in years past. Much more is on the line.

The Cougars and Utes migrated back into the same league and are fighting as Big 12 brothers. Rather than bragging rights, there is much on the line with significant value.

Here is a look at some of the storylines that make Saturday’s game a heightened event in this long, intense and storied rivalry.

Big 12 championship

While Texas Tech is projected to win a berth to Arlington for the Big 12 championship game and has already defeated Utah, BYU remains tied with the Red Raiders and Cincinnati atop the league standings at 3-0; Utah is 2-1.

BYU will play Texas Tech after playing Utah and going to Iowa State. If BYU beats Utah on Saturday, it will remain undefeated and stay on track for a spot in Arlington. A Utah loss would essentially remove any tiebreaker with Texas Tech and BYU for that spot, a far tougher road for Kyle Whittingham’s crew. Essentially, this is a back-to-the-wall league game for the Utes.

For BYU, this game is another chance at redemption after going 11-2 last year and tying for the Big 12 regular-season title on paper, but losing the right to go to Arlington because of the league tiebreaker formula loss to Arizona State — the eventual Big 12 champion who earned the automatic berth to the College Football Playoff. Earlier in the season, BYU had been ranked as high as No. 6.

The Cougars entered this 2025 season just as they did the season before, slighted as a projected league contender, considered by many experts to be a middle-of-the-road team with the departure of QB Jake Retzlaff.

Utah will come to Provo with a tremendous sense of urgency, a do-or-die attitude, and that is a mentality that makes a Whittingham team extremely dangerous.

If BYU approaches this game as if it has wiggle room to chase Texas Tech, or is entitled to a win at home, it would be a huge mistake.

Not since 2010 have BYU and Utah been in the same league before Utah’s Big 12 inaugural season in 2024.

Utah, BYU are ranked

This is the first time No. 15 BYU and No. 23 Utah come into this game as ranked teams since the 2009 season.

Back in 2009, a No. 18-ranked BYU team faced No. 22 Utah at LaVell Edwards Stadium. Both were 9-2 that Nov. 28.

That game went into overtime at 20-20 at the end of regulation. Joe Phillips made a 23-yard field goal to put Utah up 23-20 on Utah’s first and only possession in the extra period. BYU won the game on a 26-yard touchdown pass from Max Hall to tight end Andrew George, a 26-23 emotional, hard-fought win.

That was the game Hall made his famous quote to the media afterward that he hated everything about Utah. He later apologized.

BYU would not win another rivalry game until 2021.

On Saturday, BYU will host Utah as a higher-ranked team by four spots, yet Utah is listed by oddsmakers as a 3.5-point favorite on the Cougars’ home turf. This could be considered an insult to Kalani Sitake and his team, who enter this matchup as a 6-0 bowl-eligible team and have had to scratch and claw to get AP voters to consider them worthy to rank.

While Utah and BYU were unranked in the first AP preseason poll, BYU began just ahead of Utah in other teams receiving votes at 26th.

The Utes entered the rankings the following week at No. 25 after beating UCLA on the road 43-10 and climbed to No. 16 after blowing out Cal Poly and Wyoming. Utah dropped out after the Texas Tech loss.

Rankings are important. The first CFP rankings come out Nov. 4 and it is a battle between the Power Four conferences to get members ranked as high as possible.

Also, it is imperative in today’s atmosphere that a team show up early in the rankings and climb positions until the CFP poll is announced. Preseason rankings help make this happen. Utah has earned early consideration in the polls throughout the decade, while BYU has had to fight as an independent to get any preseason traction in the polls.

Revenge for 2024

Utah appeared to have beaten BYU last year in Rice-Eccles Stadium until a series of calls went against the Utes, including a controversial pass interference call that nullified a fourth-down sack of BYU quarterback Retzlaff.

BYU then drove down the field and won the game 22-21 on a Will Ferrin 44-yard field goal as time expired.

The ending was protested by Utah athletic director Mark Harlan, who told media members in a postgame presser that the game was “stolen” from them. A frustrated Whittingham followed with a terse press session and kicked a chair as he left.

BYU’s controversial win ticked off Utah football and fandom in a way few can imagine. The Utes had led at halftime and seemed in control of the game and a win.

The elusive victory has festered with the Utes. It will bring a smoldering emotion on the Utah side in Saturday’s game. That, and two-straight BYU wins in 2021 and 2024, have upended a Utah storyline that their Pac-12 membership had catapulted the program far ahead of their rival.

The passion and anticipation of righting this theory on Utah’s side is expected to reach fever pitch on Saturday. In this regard, Utah has a significant edge, as BYU comes off an emotional double-overtime win at Arizona, another game in which they fell behind and needed to stage a dramatic comeback.

BYU better prepare for Utah’s charge at redemption. It will be electric.

Poaching suspicions

Over the decades, it has not been unusual for BYU and Utah players to switch sides, be it after seasons, after commitments and after church missions. But at the end of the 2024 season, two Utah players, tight end Carsen Ryan and defensive tackle Keanu Tanuvasa, joined a previous Utah committed high school star defensive end, Hunter Clegg, in switching to become Cougars.

Another defensive tackle, Justin Kirkland, a Utah prepster who started his college career at Oklahoma State, entered the portal and was immediately snatched up by BYU.

Despite Utah gaining former BYU commit John Henry Daley, who leads the Utes in QB sacks, and former Cougar defensive lineman Logan Fano, there are Utah-oriented social media voices who are convinced BYU has tampered with their players, triggering transfers.

These kind of suspicions are somewhat new in the rivalry and have become a potential powder keg by Utah for this rematch. That is a new and very meaningful bump for those who accuse. Social media voice personalities talk regularly to Utah staff members, who have remained silent on the issue publicly.

Whittingham’s last season?

Utah struggled to a 5-7 season last year, plummeting from being a Big 12 preseason favorite to finishing among those toward the bottom of league standings. Failing to win a league game at home, the 2024 loss to BYU at home did not sit well with Utah or Whittingham.

It was rumored that Whittingham would retire at the end of last season. Utah even named his successor, defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley. Whittingham returned for the 2025 season because a 5-7 season was not the way Whittingham’s legacy should end.

In a major reshuffling of coaches, Whittingham began the year hiring Bronco Mendenhall’s New Mexico offensive coordinator Jason Beck, who brought not only coaches but players with him to Salt Lake City, including QB Devon Dampier.

While it is unknown if this is Whittingham’s last year, everything he’s done since the end of the 2024 season has been a mission for the highly successful coach to put Utah football back on track.

You have to believe that Saturday’s game against BYU in Provo is part of his agenda to right the ship and return the Ute storyline that Utah’s program is the most dominant in the state.

Whittingham’s mindset, righting his own Utah legacy, was on display earlier this week when he uncharacteristically refused to answer a reporter’s question on what he thought about BYU freshman quarterback Bear Bachmeier. Whittingham declined to answer, citing his desire to only talk about his own team this week. The previous week, Whittingham offered unsolicited praise for Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt, who he believed he would face early in the week.

Something is up with Whittingham. He’s as focused as a deer hunter.

Said one professional observer, “Kyle is acting the way he is because he wants to reestablish his legacy.”

Loyalties? What loyalties?

Perhaps for the first time in history, Saturday’s game will feature more former BYU and Utah player/coaches going against one another on the sidelines and in the booth.

Not only is Whittingham himself a former Cougar captain, but BYU head coach Kalani Sitake was a fullback for the Cougars under LaVell Edwards. And he was defensive coordinator for Whittingham at Utah.

BYU hired former Utah coach and player Jay Hill as defensive coordinator and associate head coach. He brought in former BYU and Utah linebacker coach Justin Ena and D-line coach Sione Po’uha. He also employed former Utah player/defensive coordinator Gary Andersen and former Utah player/defensive line coach Chad Kauha’aha’a as analysts.

On the offensive side, Sitake hired former Utah offensive coordinator and former BYU receiver Aaron Roderick. He has been involved in 21 rivalry games as player/coach on both sides.

For the Utes, Whittingham not only hired former Cougar QB Beck to lead his offense, but he brought in former BYU running back Mark Atuaia from Washington State and former BYU receiver Micah Simon as receiver coach.

Whittingham’s younger brother Fred, who played in the backfield with BYU’s 1990 Heisman winner Ty Detmer, is Utah’s tight end coach and recruiting coordinator.

This may be the most intermarried BYU-Utah coaching connections on the sidelines in history — trying to beat their former beloved team.

“We know that they know what we know that they know,” Roderick said of how these two staffs are familiar with one another and how they do things.

National eyeballs on Saturday

In 2024, ESPN’s “Game Day” originated in Salt Lake City for the BYU-Utah game. This Saturday, Fox will feature this rivalry game on its “Big Noon Kickoff” show from Provo.

Both schools, from fans to coaches, players and administrations look for this kind of attention. It helps in recruiting, fundraising, NIL money and national posturing for rankings and future TV appearances.

Recognition is comfort candy in college football.

This game will receive more attention and eyeballs than any in recent memory because of Big 12 standings, the race to Arlington, the impact on national rankings and simple fan hunger.

With so much at stake, and with so much emotion, it should be a made-for-TV event and go right down to the wire.

The highest-rated BYU-Utah football game in recent records occurred in 2024, drawing an audience of 2.1 million viewers, as reported by ESPN for the Nov. 9, 2024, matchup at Rice-Eccles Stadium. This surpassed the decade-long average viewership of 1.37 million for the rivalry.

Historical data suggests a 1953 game between BYU and Utah was watched by over 60 million people, though this figure is less reliable due to limited documentation and different measurement standards. For context, the 2024 game’s 2.1 million viewers made it the sixth-highest-rated college football game in Week 11 of that season and the third-most-viewed late-night game on ESPN’s network that year.

This one could be bigger.

Kalani Sitake run

After going 11-2 in 2024, Sitake earned a contract extension, which enabled him to retain his entire staff. He is 17-2 in his last 19 games.

Sitake can earn a three-game winning streak over Utah if his BYU team succeeds on Saturday. It would be the longest win streak over the Utes since his mentor, LaVell Edwards, achieved significant success over the Utes during his tenure.

If that happened, it would signal the BYU program pulling out of a decades-long slump of chasing Utah from behind through the years as an independent under Sitake and his predecessor, Bronco Mendenhall, now at Utah State.

Utah used a huge financial advantage gained by Pac-12 and P5 membership to get a leg up on BYU. It lasted until 2021, when a decade-long Ute win streak ended.

Since 2021, BYU’s financial challenges have been answered by Big 12 membership, realizing a full league revenue check this year. In the meantime, Big 12 membership has lit a fuse under BYU sports fundraising and NIL resources, changing the landscape in Provo.

BYU shocked the college basketball world by signing AJ Dybantsa, the projected No. 1 NBA draft pick in 2026, and other significant recruiting targets and transfers. For the first time in school history, BYU basketball is ranked in the top 10 in the AP preseason poll.

BYU head coach Kevin Young recruited and signed not only Utah center Keba Keita more than a year ago, but hired back Utah assistant coach and recruiter and former Ute player Chris Burgess. Resources were a big part of it.

As of this week, BYU’s football recruiting for the Class of 2026 is ranked No. 20 in the country and No. 1 in the Big 12, ahead of Texas Tech by 247Sports. Utah is ranked 45th by that same service, No. 10 in the Big 12.

Whatever happens Saturday, football recruiting science the past year shows BYU has made a major leap in its ability to attract top talent in its major sports.

This recent BYU momentum has sent a challenge to Utah, especially with NIL money. Can it match or keep up? It’s a different playing field now financially.

Saturday could be significantly important in how each school sells its pitch to recruits.