one AD from the late 80’s up until Mark Harlan was hired who was an excellent AD, and truly disliked BYU, but would have never acted so poorly in a press conference or walked onto the field.

As far as Utah’s coach, it’s a number of factors. Since he played at BYU and BYU continues to be a major program in the state, throughout his coaching career I think he’s constantly been asked about and reminded of all things BYU, and it annoys him. Which on one hand is fair, because he has his own career and program and why should he have to answer questions or think about another program that’s not his anymore?

The way he’s handled that annoyance with being asked about BYU is truly cringeworthy in most ways though. He will not acknowledge BYU’a program in any way unless they happen to be the next opponent on the schedule and he’ll call them “these guys.” He wants the world to know there’s only one program in the state worth acknowledging, and it’s his. And he can’t stand BYU beating him, or succeeding in anyway or stealing his thunder.

And for the fans and their delusional hype, another poster mentioned an inferiority complex. I must confess this has existed among us BYU fans as well, but less so since many Y fans are from out of state, and I think the feeling is fading among us in general.

The state of Utah in general has kind of had a chip on it’s shoulder due to people not taking Utah seriously, thinking it’s just a weird small Mormon state that nobody likes or wants to visit. Utah Jazz fans are bad this way. NBA players like Dennis Rodman would make fun of Utah and fans would get pretty salty over it.

So when good things do happen to Utah and Salt Lake City, things are pretty hyped up and over the top. I think we were probably as or more excited than any city to host the Olympics, and it was like Salt Lake City was finally taken seriously and arrived on the world stage. Utah football is all the chip on shoulder and hype on steroids.

After the golden years of the Jazz faded and BYU was past their golden years with Lavell Edwards, Urban Meyer ignited a fire in Utah fans and media that grew into a hype machine that only now might be breaking with Utah’s decline and BYU’s resurgence and P4 inclusion. It’s rare to find any Utah media that will ever say anything bad about Utah football or predict a loss. And all that hype and media created some very intense, unhinged fans with tunnel vision toward the Utah utes.

Now in this 5 game losing streak while BYU is 9-0, the cracks in the foundation are leading to public meltdowns and these diehard fans being left with nothing to say except their true feeling about BYU and sports reality which is pure vitriolic trash that I certainly won’t repeat here.

That’s a rough outline of it, other posters might have different insights into it. Looking forward to a good clean game agains KU this Saturday and couldn’t be happier to be in the Big 12.