STILLWATER, Okla. — Oklahoma State fans engaged in an offensive chant of religious slurs directed toward BYU and its sponsoring institution, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Wednesday night at Gallagher-Iba Arena during the Cowboys’ basketball victory over BYU.
The chant, which was audible on the FS1 game broadcast, was “(expletive) the Mormons.”
BYU coach Kevin Young addressed the chant during his postgame press conference.
“There were some ‘F the Mormons’ chants tonight by the student section that I heard,” Young told reporters. “You know, it’s a great win for Oklahoma State University, their fans should be proud. But it would be great if, you know, some class was (shown) in there as well.
“You know, I got four small kids at home. You know, I’m a Mormon. When I go home, they’re going to ask me about (the chants) the same way they asked me about it last year at Arizona.”
The chants have continued to occur during various BYU athletic events outside of Utah in recent years. USC (2021), Oregon (2022), Providence (2024) and Cincinnati (2025) are among the schools that have issued apologies for such chants.
“There’s just too much hate in the world to be saying stuff like that. We got enough problems in our world without going at people’s religion and beliefs,” Young said. “... We only have probably four or five guys ... who are even Mormon on the team. I understand what we represent, but even for a guy like AJ (Dybantsa), you know, that stuff is unwarranted.
“And like I said, I try to talk to our guys about being examples in the world. We can use basketball to really just bring people together and not tear people apart or something. We talk about (that) a lot, and it’s just disappointing. I hope someone prints that. I hope it’s in bold on someone’s publication. Together as a society, we can just help the world kind of move forward and not divide each other with pain and things that are really nonsensical.”