Would You Root For Your Rival?

I’ll get my answer in now before this degenerates into the petty raving that occurs with anything even tangentially related to BYU/Utah.

I’m a BYU graduate, and I grew up in Provo. I have always cheered for BYU and always will. And I do favor them when they play the Utes.

Having said that, I have no hatred towards the Utes at all. I’d love for them to win every game they play except for when they play BYU. And even then, if they’re honestly the better team when they play BYU, and they deserve to win, and play better, then I can usually live with that too. It’s not just because it makes the conference look better. I really just don’t have any hatred for them — whether by “them” I mean the players themselves, or the school, or the fans. I live in Salt Lake City now, with several Utah students. I know too many people on both sides of the rivalry to hate either side.

I could say a lot more about the BYU/Utah rivalry, but I won’t. To get back to the original question: college sports are inherently different in structure from the pros. I would never, ever cheer for the Lakers as a Jazz fan. But I will cheer for the Utes as a Cougar fan.

it is too important not to. I have addressed this at holywarfootball.com and utefans.net in some comments, but like Shums at Vanquish the Foe, it does deserve it’s own post. – oh, by the way, I love the term “Holy War”, it gives the game some personality, identity, and life. The “Deseret Duel” or whatever they are pushing it to be called is lame. The schools should just embrace the Holy War…but I digress.

Anyway, I am compelled to cheer for BYU and every other MWC team in non-conference games. The benefits for Utah and the conference as a whole are too important. So, I will be cheering like mad for the Y against Oklahoma this weekend. However, the moment the conference or the Utes (perhaps with the Pac-10) get an automatic BCS invite, I am done cheering for the Y.

By the way, Shums and anyone else for that matter. My counterpart who writes about BYU at “HolyWarFootball.com” just posted his BYU season predictions, you should check them out. I am going to publish my Ute predictions tonight.

But I root for all MWC teams to win as many games as possible.

Unless you’re at a game, who you root for just is not going to affect the game. It’s debatable how much effect a single person can have on the outcome if they actually go to the game.

So with that being said, I would prefer if our rivals beat Oklahoma this Saturday. Or more accurately, I am rooting for Oklahoma to lose and the MWC to win. And I’d prefer for our rivals to lose every conference game. Someone has to be at the bottom of the conference standings.