Kimber Wakley is no longer a University of Utah cheerleader, unfortunately.
If she still was, the story of how she is married to a BYU football player would be even juicier this week, as the No. 9 Cougars and struggling Utes renew the state’s best college football rivalry on Saturday at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City (8:15 p.m. MST, ESPN).
“Yeah, that would be kinda crazy (if Kimber was cheering for the Utes on Saturday),” said her husband, BYU starting safety Crew Wakley. “That would be wild.”
The couple got married in August 2020 when Crew, a former all-state quarterback at Jordan High, was playing for the Utah State University Aggies. Kimber was a Utes cheerleader in 2018 and 2019 when Crew was serving a mission in Fort Worth, Texas, for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“People always ask her who she is cheering for this week,” Crew said Tuesday, chuckling, as the Cougars continued preparations in Provo for the rivalry game. “She is a BYU fan now. So she has converted.”
Crew says it really didn’t take that much convincing, although somewhere in their house is a bag full of Kimber’s old Utah cheerleading outfits and pom-poms. Truth be told, Kimber had previously made the jump from red to blue — Navy blue — when Crew played for the Aggies in 2020 and 2021 before giving up football for a time and selling solar panels in Fresno, California.
“It was good. She had a lot of fun up there at Utah. She loved her time up there, but now that we are down in Provo, she has switched over to the royal blue,” Crew said.
He credited his wife’s support for keeping him in college football, and persuading him to not give up on his dream when things didn’t work out for him in Logan. As a walk-on at BYU, he’s also grateful for her being the breadwinner in the family.
“She works full time to support us now,” Crew said. “Someone has gotta pay the bills. I am not on scholarship, so she is paying the bills. She actually has a really good job (as finance director at BMW of Murray). So it is a good gig.”
Crew and Kimber were classmates their freshmen and sophomore years at Jordan, but Kimber’s family moved to the Bingham High boundaries before her junior year and she graduated from that South Valley school while Crew threw for nearly 3,000 yards and 22 touchdowns his senior year at Jordan.
He also rushed 195 times for 1,420 yards and 22 TDs. He signed with Utah State in 2018 before heading off on his mission. After playing safety and even some linebacker in Logan his freshman year, he was moved to quarterback when new coach Blake Anderson took over, and then back to safety, cornerback, and linebacker again.
Fed up and frustrated, and feeling that USU coaches weren’t being honest with him about his future, he entered the transfer portal.
As has been thoroughly documented, he landed at BYU as a walk-on and moved his way up the depth chart to a starting spot early in the 2023 season. Then he had to earn his starting spot all over again in 2024, having been behind some returning guys coming off injuries.
His game-sealing interception against Baylor solidified him as one of the top playmakers on the BYU defense, a defense that isn’t certain which quarterback the Utes will start — Isaac Wilson or Brandon Rose.
“It would be nice to know, but with the situation at hand, it is what it is,” Wakley said. “We are going to go in and play ball and whether they have Wilson or whoever their quarterback is, our game plan is the same.”
As for the rivalry game, Crew said he remembers watching it on Sept. 10, 2021, when he was an Aggie and never really thinking that one day he would play in it. The Cougars won 26-17 that night at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
“It is one of those games that growing up in the state, you grow up watching, wanting to play in. All the crazy battles, close games, right? So I am excited. The boys are excited. The energy is high,” he said. “No one really needs extra motivation right now. When we show up on a Tuesday practice ready to rock, it is a good sign. There was a lot of juice. Pads were popping. Good practice. Everybody is ready to go.”
Including a certain former Utes cheerleader, who will be decked out in blue when she returns to Rice-Eccles Stadium.
