BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick started adding it up the other day as another BYU-Utah football rivalry game approached, this one perhaps the most important in the long, bitter, colorful and oftentimes nasty history of the series.
The former Bountiful High star, BYU receiver, BYU graduate assistant under LaVell Edwards, Utah receivers coach, quarterback coach and co-offensive coordinator under Kyle Whittingham, has been involved as a player or coach in one of the country’s most heated and intense college football rivalries 21 times.
Saturday’s 6 p.m. MDT Big 12 showdown at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo will mark the 22nd time for Roderick, who is a big reason why the No. 15 Cougars are 6-0 in 2025 and a remarkable 17-2 in their last 19 games. Roderick and assistant quarterbacks coach Matt Mitchell have masterfully developed freshman quarterback Bear Bachmeier into a legitimate power conference QB, which gives the Cougars a chance to pull off the upset of the No. 23 Utes (Utah is a 3.5-point favorite) when all seemed lost when 2024 Utah-beater Jake Retzlaff ran afoul of the honor code and bolted for Tulane.
“I trust A Rod, and I think one of the most difficult positions in BYU football is to be the OC (because) it comes with a lot of criticism, but I don’t know if it comes with enough praise.”
— Kalani Sitake on Aaron Roderick
“What A Rod and his staff have done with Bear has been amazing,” head coach Kalani Sitake said last week.
Tuesday, Roderick said of those 21 aforementioned BYU-Utah matchups, nine or 10 came down to the last possession, or the last play. Although BYU has won the last two and Utah won nine straight before that, they’ve almost always been one-possession games.
“It is important every year, because it’s a huge game,” Roderick said. “The whole state’s into it. I’ve been following it my whole life. I have coached on both sides of it, and I always did everything I could to help my team win. It is a lot of fun.”
One of those close games was in 2010, as BYU freshman quarterback Jake Heaps was seemingly leading the Cougars down the field in the final minutes for the game-winning field goal; however, Utah’s Brandon Burton blocked Mitch Payne’s attempt, and Utah prevailed 17-16.
While then-BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall and his players and staff stared on in disbelief and the Utes celebrated wildly all over the field, Roderick was one of the first Utah assistants to make his way over to Mendenhall to console the heartbroken coach and offer praise for almost pulling off the upset.
“I’ve never liked all the negativity and nastiness that the rivalry brings out in people,” Roderick told the Deseret News in February 2021, shortly after he replaced Jeff Grimes as BYU’s OC.
Last year, after BYU kicker Will Ferrin’s 44-yard field goal beat the Utes, former Utah coach Ron McBride, decked in red from head to toe, sought out Roderick during the Cougars’ joyous celebration after the game and congratulated him on having a solid offensive game plan.
‘It didn’t end exactly the way I wanted’
If anyone could be excused for having some ill feelings toward the Utes and Whittingham, it would be Roderick. After coaching under Whittingham from 2005-2016, he was let go as Utah’s co-OC and quarterbacks coach after the Utes went a respectable 9-4 in 2016 and beat Indiana 26-24 in the Foster Farms Bowl.
Whittingham cited the Utes 1-3 finish, their No. 106 national ranking in red-zone offense, and having the No. 8 scoring offense in the Pac-12 as reasons for the dismissal.
When he was hired by Sitake to replace Grimes in 2021 after serving as an offensive consultant in 2017 and BYU’s passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2018-20, Roderick refused to gloat or throw shade back at Utah.
“I don’t even look at it that way,” he told the Deseret News. “I look back on that time and it really just feels like we were winning all the time. I got fired. It didn’t end exactly the way I wanted. But I coached there for 12 years and we won 100-something games. It was great. … Really, no hard feelings toward anyone. That’s the honest truth. I don’t think about being redemptive.”
Sitake brought Roderick to Provo in 2017 to help with the offense when Ty Detmer was the OC and struggling mightily through a 4-9 campaign. Now it could be argued that Roderick is the best offensive coordinator the program has had in the past 20 years, better than Robert Anae, Brandon Doman, Detmer or Grimes.
“I trust A Rod, and I think one of the most difficult positions in BYU football is to be the OC (because) it comes with a lot of criticism, but I don’t know if it comes with enough praise,” Sitake said Monday. “The things that A Rod has been able to do when everybody was so concerned about a true freshman leading our team have been great, and I think everyone should give him a lot of credit for what he’s been able to get done with Bear.
“And Bear himself deserves that (praise), too. But with all that said and done, man, I want to keep him humble,” he continued. “Our goal is to stay humble and stay hungry. And in order to do that, you have to keep working. You have to keep trying to get better.
“So there’s a lot of room for improvement, and that’s for all of us, not just Bear himself, but also for A Rod, myself as a head coach, and Jay Hill as the D coordinator, (Kelly Poppinga) as the special teams coordinator.”
Roderick’s fingerprints all over BYU’s 26-17 win in 2021
Receiver Chase Roberts was a freshman on the 2021 BYU team that beat Utah 26-17 on Sept. 11 to snap the Utes’ nine-game winning streak in the series, and although he didn’t play in the game, Roberts remembers how much it meant to Roderick to see the Cougars’ win that battle in the trenches, and how it was “music to his ears” when Whittingham acknowledged BYU’s line play was the difference.
But Roderick didn’t gloat, and he didn’t gloat last year when BYU won 22-21 in Salt Lake City on a last-minute field goal drive when all appeared lost.
“I am sure internally for A Rod this game (Saturday) means a lot to him, being able to play them again and knowing his history there at Utah,” Roberts said. “He keeps it pretty hidden, though. He knows the weight of this rivalry game, and he says it to us.
“But he preps the same way he has prepped himself and us every week, and I think that is the thing about coach Roderick, is that he is prepared every week, and he is going to prepare the same and do all he can to put us in the best position so we can win the game.”
Assistant quarterbacks coach Mitchell, who joined the staff as an offensive analyst in 2020 and then went to Baylor in 2021, only to return to BYU in 2022, said Roderick and Baylor head coach Dave Aranda are the two most-poised coaches he’s ever been around.
“His ability to remain clear-headed in the fire is extremely impressive,” Mitchell said. “He’s an awesome person. He treats people the right way, but he’s all business, too.”
That all-business, professional approach is why Roderick refuses to harbor any bitterness about the way things went down nine years ago on The Hill.
“I think it’s water under the bridge to A Rod now,” Mitchell said. “He does a very good job of taking emotions out of it. He does that with Utah, too, you know. We will talk about some of the experiences he may have had there that maybe apply to us. But as much as we can, we try to take personal feelings out of it.”
Other BYU coaches have also worn the red
Obviously, Roderick isn’t the only former Ute coach or player on BYU’s staff; head coach Sitake, defensive coordinator Jay Hill, linebackers coach Justin Ena, defensive line coach Sione Po’uha and defensive analysts Gary Andersen and Chad Kauha’aha’a have also played or coached in Salt Lake City.
Hill also talked about his love for the University of Utah, and the rivalry game, earlier this week.
“It is my favorite week of the year. I couldn’t sleep last night (because) I was just so excited about the week, and what it represents for the fans, and how big of an impact this game has had on me, and my career, and my family,” Hill said on his “Coordinators’ Corner” show Monday.
“I love this game, having been on both sides of it. I think it is super fun, super exciting, and we got a really good football team coming in here.”
Hill said all the former Utes on the BYU staff have “different ways” of handling the game, and all are appropriate.
“I got my start in coaching there, and I love coach Whittingham and the program and everything they have,” Hill said. “But it is sure fun to play them, because we are competitive.
“I wear a different color right now, but I love those guys up there, a lot of those coaches and players. I have tons of respect for them. I think the feeling is mostly mutual. But we respect the heck out of what they do and what this game represents.”
