No. 3 Utah and No. 7 BYU back on equal footing in football as members of the Big 12

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Playing in the same conference again has put No. 7 BYU and No. 3 Utah back on equal footing in football.

It has imbued greater meaning into their annual Holy War rivalry showdown. When the Utes host the Cougars on Saturday, the game will be a major factor in determining who will play for the Big 12 Championship in December — and whether more than one team from the league will claim a College Football Playoff bid.

“The whole entire offseason, I couldn’t go anywhere without hearing about this game at some point,” Utah quarterback Devon Dampier said. “I understand what this means to the state, for sure.”

This is a full-circle moment for BYU and Utah, who regularly competed against one another for WAC and Mountain West Conference titles a generation ago.

The Holy War rivalry took a hit when the No. 3 Utes (8-0, 5-0 Big 12, No. 3 CFP) joined the Pac-12 in 2011. Utah moving up to a power conference, while BYU chose to become an FBS independent, sent the two schools on wildly different trajectories.

Utah gained a distinct advantage in recruiting, TV money, and resources over the No. 7 Cougars (7-1, 4-1, No. 9 CFP) during the thirteen seasons the two rivals no longer shared a conference. Top high school and junior college recruits in Utah routinely chose to play for the Utes over BYU during that period. On-field results reflected those advantages. Utah ran off nine straight wins over the Cougars from 2010 to 2018 and went 8-1 in the rivalry series during the dozen seasons that BYU was independent.

Joining the Big 12 in 2023 helped BYU close the gap with Utah. NIL and the transfer portal also helped the Cougars climb upward. Since 2024, BYU is 30-5 and Utah is 24-9.

Even while the schools were on uneven footing, the Holy War typically remained a hard-fought affair peppered with tight finishes. Only four of the last 25 games in the series featured a double-digit margin of victory.

“There’s just a lot of intensity in the game, and it just seems to get the best of the players on the field,” BYU coach Kalani Sitake said. “The talent just shows up, and then it usually comes down to a tight finish. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that it’s become a big-time rivalry, and I’m just really fortunate to be involved with it.”

One unique element of the Holy War rivalry is how intertwined BYU and Utah are on and off the football field. With the campuses only 45 miles apart, many families on both sides of the rivalry have friends and relatives who attended the rival school.

“Growing up, all my neighbors, we were all split down my neighborhood, Utah and BYU fans,” BYU defensive tackle Bodie Schoonover said. “We’d be spray-painting Ys and spray-painting Us on the lawns and stuff like that. It’s a lot of fun, man.”

Several coaches from both schools have crossed the rivalry lines through their careers.

Sitake and BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick were both coordinators under Kyle Whittingham at Utah. Defensive assistant coaches Justin Ena, Sione Po’uha, and Chad Kauha’aha’a all had coaching stints with the Utes before joining the Cougars. Utah OC Kevin McGiven and running backs coach Mark Atuaia both coached at BYU earlier in their careers.

“It’s a great rivalry,” Utah coach Morgan Scalley said. “It’s great because of that proximity to each other, the history of the back-and-forth (games). I think also it’s unique that you really have staffs that know each other, that have coached together and coached against each other for so long.”

The two schools now compete for many of the same recruits inside and outside of Utah. More than 50 recruits will be at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Saturday. Several hold scholarship offers from both BYU and Utah.

Cougars defensive end Keanu Tanuvasa played at Utah before transferring to Provo in 2025 and said both schools appeal to similar players because they share common threads in how they’ve built their respective programs.

“Cut from the same cloth, very similarly with coaches from both sides being on either side,” Tanuvasa said. “I don’t know if there’s any outright differences between the two other than maybe the culture of both teams, but yeah, I think they’re both very similarly on par with one another.”

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