Short answer: They are our rival

Long answer that I’ve thought a lot about: BYU should have been P5 a long time ago. It was religious discrimination that kept us out of the PAC and B12 in the last 15 years, and maybe longer. We’ve seen all the metrics, and we have belonged for a long time. But we got screwed over and had to make the best of it in Independence.

Utah gets added to the PAC because they and Colorado were the next best thing to shore up the conference at the time. I don’t blame them for being excited about it, but then they immediately start big-timing us and acting like they were so much better. Never mind the fact that we dragged their sorry behinds with us in the past and went to bat for them. But not Utah… they were happy to kick us to the curb. And then after joining, they immediately start to diminish the rivalry and act like it doesn’t matter, while also acting like they are on the verge of becoming a blue blood. Their HC, a former BYU player, won’t even say our school’s name and acts like a little child.

Mind you, this was their record in the PAC by season:
8-5
5-7
5-7
9-4
10-3
9-4
7-6
9-5
11-3
3-2
10-4
10-4
8-5

Sure, that’s respectable.… but in zero seasons did they lose fewer than three games (not counting Covid)… And in their two Rose Bowl appearances, they had three losses each time before losing that game too. And they act like they were perennially running the SEC or something. Their ranking has been overinflated by the voters that favor the P5 in the past. We all know it. They refuse to admit that in virtually all those years, the PAC was the weakest conference. So again, nobody blames them for loving their conference and playing UCLA, Oregon, USC, Washington every year. We would have been excited too. But the level of arrogance was beyond anything we had ever seen from them.

Then when they get invited to the B12, they trash on it nonstop. They call it the truck stop conference and act like they are God’s gift to the conference, here to save the day. They talk openly about how bad the conference sucks and that they’re going to steamroll the competition for a few years, rack up a few B12 trophies, and then be on their merry way to the B1G.

All this while crapping on us the whole time and acting like they’ve had a seat at the table for 50 years. They are the worst. So yeah, when reality smacks them in the face like it did last night, it is incredibly vindicating. You are not special. You are not on the cusp of being blue bloods. You are not nationally relevant. You are not going to the B1G in the next few years. You are not USC’s rival, and they don’t care about you at all. And your fans are obnoxious and loud on social media and everyone hates them.