We’ve seen some of college football’s greatest rivalries leave the Big 12 over the last several waves of conference realignment.
The Red River Rivalry (OU-Texas), The Lone Star Showdown (Texas-Texas A&M), The Border War (Kansas-Missouri), and Bedlam (OU-OSU) have all left the Big 12, along with several other heated rivalries over the years.
Despite a couple of those rivalries being lost in the most recent conference shift, the Big 12 picked up one of the oldest and most hostile feuds in all of college football. Utah vs. BYU, colloquially known as the “Holy War,” is about as heated as rivalries come, as the folks on either side of this rivalry share the state of Utah, but not a whole lot more than that.
Utah leads the all-time series, 62-35-4, and has won 10 of the last 11 meetings. However, the most recent matchup, which came in 2021, went the way of the Cougars — a 26-17 victory at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
Utah quarterback Cam Rising, who is set to play his seventh year of college football, has only faced the Cougars one time during his stint in Salt Lake City, and it was in that nine-point loss on the road. While he didn’t play in that game, he certainly seems to remember the loss.
During his time at Big 12 Media Days on Tuesday, Rising threw some fuel on the fire by expressing his desire to get revenge on the Cougs this fall.
“Absolutely,” Rising said of being excited about the return of Utah-BYU, “I just want to go down there and whoop their a–, pretty much. That’s all I’m focused on.”
According to Utah, the Utes and Cougars first met all the way back in 1896, making it one of the oldest rivalries in college football. The two teams shared a conference from 1922 to 2010, and played annually as a result.
The series took a brief hiatus in 2014 and 2015 and once again in 2022 and 2023, both due to Utah scheduling other nonconference opponents. Now, they’ll matchup annually for the foreseeable future as they once again share a conference in the Big 12.
The Utes and Cougars will rekindle their rivalry on Saturday, November 9 at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah.
