In the middle of last year, new BYU Cougars quarterback Kedon Slovis made headlines for some comments he made about the city and fans he’ll now play in and for.
In an appearance on the Momentum podcast in June of 2021, the topic of heckling came up, and Slovis said he had two stories to share, the first of which took place in 2019 as his USC Trojans (he later transferred to Pitt) played the Cougars on the road in Provo, Utah.
“The craziest thing to me, is like Provo’s a weird place,” Slovis said. “Have you ever seen ‘The Truman Show’? That’s what we say all the time, that’s Provo, Utah...it’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful place.”
Slovis then began telling how when the Trojans went into LaVell Edwards Stadium for the game, “People are like smiling, like ‘Thank you for coming to play.’ We’re like, ‘What?”
He added that people were waiting with “shower bag goodies” and wished players good luck, which continued to catch him off guard.
Then came the comments about hecklers.
“They’re all Mormon, right? Ninety-five percent of the place isn’t drinking. I think that’s almost more intimidating, ‘cause you’re going in there, and usually like kids are heckling you or people are heckling you, you’re like, ‘Alright, they’re just drunk.’ Every person in that stadium is sober heckling you.
“So then when they heckle at you or like they say stuff and they’re like not cussing, they’re like, ‘Slovis, you stink.’ They’re right behind your bench, and in the back of your mind, you’re like, ‘This dude’s sober, and he’s actively like...heckling our entire sideline, and they were like ruthless, but in the back of your mind you’re like, ‘They’re not even like being drunk and stupid. They’re genuinely heckling you for the sake of heckling you.”
Slovis then told a story about how a Notre Dame fan made former teammate Michael Pittman eat some words about running up the score in a game before circling back to the BYU incident.
“Very Twilight Zone, Truman Show-esque,” Slovis said. “Again, not to bash Provo, Utah. Like, they’re great people. It was just interesting to have that atmosphere. We do play them this year, so I don’t want to say anything. They’re great people.”