Utah largely owned the trenches. Did anyone believe BYU would convert the 2 point attempt? I thought 25% chance at best. Too much speed up front. And our OL could not push them back. So they threw a poorly conceived and less effectively executed fade route.

The home field made a difference. That’s a tough environment to play in at night especially.

Utah defense had a good plan and was good enough to win. Huge advantage on special teams to BYU for the win frankly.

But

The worst call of the game was a 25 yard difference on a TD drive-face mask. But it was an understandable miss from the official’s perspective.

Utah was not cheated. Not at all. Not a little bit. The two huge holding penalties late in the game were critical to the plays, obvious and right in front of an official.

What we are witnessing is the conduct of men who are discouraged by a few things: their beloved conference’s implosion (partly their own fault if reports of the tv negotiations are accurate), a really bad season when expectations were at an all time high, seeing BYU explode to a historic season with players and coaches (some weeks at least) greatly exceeding expectations.

Of the three the first one is key. It is their identity. They were finally of a higher status than BYU. But it didn’t last. Identity and status inform our world view and drive our actions. Harlan’s comments about the conference reek of arrogance. They are so disappointed to no longer rub shoulders with USC and the rest. So they pretended to be ok with the B12. But Harlan basically let the cat out of the bag. They think they are better than this conference. They have won one game so far against an 0-6 team. Basketball will be interesting