Thanks to a fairly soft early schedule, the fact that their starting quarterback is a true freshman, and their inability to beat lower-level Big 12 teams Colorado and Arizona convincingly, the No. 15 BYU Cougars have not really earned the respect they believe they deserve midway through the 2025 college football season.
Despite them being undefeated and atop the conference standings after going 11-2 last year, the jury is still out on coach Kalani Sitake’s crew — at least from a national perspective. Are the Cougars a contender for a College Football Playoff spot, or a pretender that will fall out of the race now that the slate gets extremely more difficult?
An answer to that question will almost certainly come Saturday night in one of the most important games in the long and storied history of the BYU-Utah football rivalry. The 6-0 Cougars will play host to the red-hot and 5-1 Utes, ranked 23rd, at 6 p.m. MDT at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo, and the world will be watching.
Special Collector’s Issue: “1984: The Year BYU was Second to None”
Get an inclusive look inside BYU Football’s 1984 National Championship season.
The pressure is squarely on both teams, for a variety of reasons, but the rivalry aspects of the game — bragging rights, in-state recruiting edges, neighbors and family members pitted against each other, all those things — will take a back seat this year to the national implications.
“Those are my guys, but when it comes down to it, we’re not the ones playing the game. We had our moments already. We are old has-beens or never-weres.”
— BYU coach Kalani Sitake on the large number of coaches on both sides of the rivalry that have ties to both programs
BYU defensive coordinator Jay Hill, the former Utah player and assistant coach and Weber State head coach, said that is how it should be every year, but stopped short of calling Saturday’s iteration the biggest rivalry game of them all.
“I think people make games out to be maybe more than they are. This is a huge rivalry game. It means a lot for both programs. It could (have) conference championship implications, all that stuff,” Hill said. “But we’re so early in the season, I can’t say it’s the biggest one in history, because there were a lot of (rivalry) games that came down to having to win to go to BCS games, or have to win … to win the conference championship. Those were pretty big, those games.”
Most rivalry games are played in November, as the BYU-Utah matchup was when both schools located less than 50 miles from each other were in the WAC or Mountain West conferences together. But playing in October has its advantages as well. The weather should be ideal for football and both teams are ranked for the first time since the 2009 meeting, a 26-23 overtime win for No. 18 BYU over No. 22 Utah in Provo.
That came on the heels of No. 8 Utah’s 48-24 win over No. 16 BYU in 2008. In 1994, No. 21 Utah edged No. 20 BYU 34-31 in Provo on Chris Yergensen’s 55-yard field goal as time expired.
If there has been a common theme to these games the past 30 years, it has been their closeness. Nineteen of the last 24 have been one-score games (final margin eight points or fewer). Taking advantage of its membership in a Power Five conference (Pac-12) and all that brings, Utah won nine straight from 2010 to 2019.
BYU has won the last two, 26-17 in 2021 and 22-21 last year in Salt Lake City, and can beat Utah for the third straight time for the first time since 1992, when it captured four consecutive rivalry games.
“This is one of the best weeks of the year, for sure, to have this matchup. It makes it even better that we are both ranked, having great seasons,” said BYU safety Tanner Wall. “There is a lot of excitement (for) this game. We are excited to go out there on Saturday and play.”
Obviously, it is huge for the Utes as well. One of the storylines revolves around the future of Utes coach Kyle Whittingham, who has always made it a priority to beat the school for which he played.
Is this Whitt’s last hurrah in Provo? Or would another loss to their rival cause the veteran coach to return in 2026, rather than turn the reins over to coach-in-waiting Morgan Scalley? As has been thoroughly documented this week, Utah’s staff is loaded with former Cougars, and BYU’s staff is loaded with former Utes. It is just another element that makes the rivalry unique, and ultra-personal.
“Those are my guys, but when it comes down to it, we’re not the ones playing the game. We had our moments already. We are old has-beens or never-weres,” said Sitake. “It’s kind of fun to see these young guys get after it. I’m a little jealous. They’re in the Big 12 and they get to do this. We were in the WAC or in the Mountain West when we got to do it. And so this is a really cool upgrade for the rivalry game.”
Indeed, the outcome of this one could have implications for years, as BYU freshman QB Bear Bachmeier squares off against Scalley’s No. 11 Utah defense (in scoring) and Utah newcomer Devon Dampier faces Hill’s BYU defense, which is allowing just 14.6 points and 263.5 yards per game.
“The atmosphere is going to be electric. I know our fans are going to bring it and you know both teams are going to bring their best,” said BYU special teams coordinator Kelly Poppinga, whose unit was largely responsible for last year’s win at Rice-Eccles, thanks to Keelan Marion’s kickoff return for a touchdown and Will Ferrin’s game-winning 44-yard field goal.
“We really respect these guys a lot,” Poppinga continued. “Their quarterback is a really good player.”
Despite having the better record, and playing at home, and playing at night (BYU is 34-4 in its last 38 night games), the Cougars are a 3.5-point underdog, which would seemingly be a talking point this week, but really hasn’t been.
“We always love being under-looked, that’s how it usually is here at BYU, and it has kinda been for a lot of our games this year, well, some of our games,” said BYU tight end Carsen Ryan, a former Ute. “We embrace that. We take it with a grain of salt, honestly. We know what kind of team we are, and we will be ready to play.”
Partly because the teams didn’t meet in 2020, 2022 or 2023, nobody on this BYU team has ever felt the bitter sting, the punch-in-the-gut feeling, of losing to the Utes. BYU receiver Chase Roberts, a fifth-year senior, would like to keep it that way.
“This being my last time facing Utah, this game means a lot more to me, obviously,” Roberts said. “I am ready to leave everything I have out on the field for my brothers, knowing the weight of this game, and knowing how much fun it is, and knowing it will be remembered forever. I will do whatever I can to help us win.”
From this vantage point, the game will be decided by turnovers and whether BYU’s defense can get off the field against Dampier and company on third down. The Utes are No. 1 in the country in third-down conversion rate (60%), having converted 48 of 80 third-down opportunities.
Bachmeier has only thrown three interceptions, but all three came in the last two games, wins over West Virginia and Arizona.
“Turnover margin will probably be the deciding factor in this game. If not the deciding factor, it will be up there. It is super important in every game,” said BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick. “We have to take care of the football, and they are trying to do the same thing. That’s the name of the game.”
Source link
