For players like Karene Reid, the Utah-BYU rivalry was embedded in him practically from the day he was born.
“We have certainly made sure that the guys that have never participated in the game, and/or are not from in-state, so they don’t know anything about it, are fully versed in what it’s all about.”
— Utah coach Kyle Whittingham
Utah’s senior linebacker, who was born in American Fork, has a dad, Spencer Reid, and two uncles, Gabriel Reid and Adney Reid, who played for BYU. Two decades later, Karene is donning red as the Utes prepare to play the No. 9 Cougars on Saturday (8:15 p.m. MST, ESPN).
“It means a lot. It means a lot. Obviously, grew up in Utah, started off a BYU fan and then repented and all that,” Reid said. “No, I’m just joking, but it does mean a lot and just excited. I grew up watching this game. To be a part of it is going to be a memory for a lifetime.”
Reid was a freshman the last time Utah played BYU — a 26-17 loss in Provo — but didn’t play in the game. When the two sides meet after a two-season hiatus, the longest hiatus the series has had since a three-year break from 1943-45 during World War II, it’s Reid’s chance to make an impact on the game he grew up watching.
For the 45 players like Reid on the Utes’ roster who grew up watching the rivalry game in Utah, the significance of Saturday’s game isn’t lost on them.
But with the last game between the long-standing rivals coming over three years ago, there’s a whole host of players that haven’t played in one of the nation’s most intense rivalries, and for those players that didn’t grow up in the Beehive State, Saturday will be their first taste.
It’s the biggest sporting event in the state of Utah, but Utah-BYU isn’t a much-watch nationally like Michigan-Ohio State, Auburn-Alabama or Texas-Oklahoma, despite a history of exciting, wild and chaotic one-score games over the course of the series.
Defensive end Connor O’Toole (born in Albuquerque, New Mexico), running back Micah Bernard (Long Beach, California) and tight end Brant Kuithe (Katy, Texas) never watched a BYU-Utah game on TV prior to arriving in Salt Lake City, but they quickly learned what the rivalry was all about.
Kuithe has been around as long as anyone on Utah’s roster, and is one of the few players on the 2024 team to experience a win over the Cougars. He played a few snaps in Utah’s memorable 35-27 win over BYU in 2018, when backup quarterback Jason Shelley and backup running back Armand Shyne helped engineer a 28-point comeback.
“Obviously the first game, especially with Jason Shelley, we were down a bunch of points and we ended up coming back and beating them. It was a crazy game,” Kuithe said.
The veteran tight end played a bigger role in Utah’s 30-12 victory over BYU in Provo in 2019, the last time the Utes won the rivalry game, catching three passes for 37 yards. The story of the win was Zack Moss running wild — 187 yards and a touchdown — and Francis Bernard and Julian Blackmon each returning interceptions for scores.
In the world of college football, though, five years is an eternity, and the last memory O’Toole, Bernard and Kuithe, who each played in the 2021 contest, have of the rivalry is a negative one.
“We just lost, got our (expletive) kicked,” Kuithe said. “Just excited to get that one back.”
“When you think about the rivalry and all the years that we won in a row and stuff like that, and you come in, first year I’m actually playing and we actually lose one,” Bernard said. “It hurts that I’m a part of that team that actually lost that game, and so it means a lot to me. I don’t want to feel like that ever again.”
While the few players that played in the 2021 loss — plus the players that grew up in Utah — know exactly what the rivalry is all about, how does the rest of the roster, which grew up without any feelings at all about the game, get immersed in the rivalry?
It starts with listening to the teammates who have played in the game before. When Bernard arrived in Salt Lake City in 2020, he quickly started learning about the rivalry from the other players, and now that he’s played in it himself, he’s passing that on to the new guys.
“Just going through the program, seeing how everybody took the game and how serious it actually is around here with the fans and everybody, you get immersed in it and I’ve been immersed in it,” Bernard said.
Of course, some “indoctrination,” as Utah coach Kyle Whittingham calls it, comes from the head man himself. Who better to explain the importance of the rivalry to those who haven’t played in it than Whittingham, who was a linebacker for BYU and a graduate assistant coach in Provo before leading the Utes for 20 years.
“We have certainly made sure that the guys that have never participated in the game, and/or are not from in-state, so they don’t know anything about it, are fully versed in what it’s all about,” Whittingham said.
Throughout the week, the program has brought in former players that played in rivalry games past to talk to the team, and some of those former Utes will also be on the sideline at Rice-Eccles Stadium this Saturday.
“That is a big part of the preparation is former players explaining and communicating to our guys what this is all about,” Whittingham said.
Utah running back Jaylon Glover — a Lakeland, Florida native whose first year in Salt Lake City was 2022 — has never played in the rivalry game, but has grasped the intensity, and added to it. On Monday, he became the latest player to make an entry into the long-running back-and-forth between the two rivals.
Asked about what the rivalry meant to him, Glover responded, “Excuse my language, but it’s (expletive) BYU, man.”
“I’ve never been a part of the Cold War, but I’m excited. Looking for the opportunity to be out there to go fight and battle with the guys and keep our streak going, man, we got to go beat them boys down south, but I’m excited to be a part of it,” Glover said, perhaps referring to Utah’s home winning streak over BYU at Rice-Eccles Stadium, a place the Cougars haven’t won since 2006; BYU won the last rivalry game in 2021.
About two hours after making the comments, Glover sent out an apology on social media.
“I wanted to apologize for the language I used during post-practice media tonight. It doesn’t represent who I am or our program and was a lapse in my judgment. As a program, we respect every opponent we face and we have respect for BYU and are excited to play them Saturday,” he wrote.
