Holy War (BYU–Utah)
Updated: Wikipedia source
The Holy War is the name given to the American college football rivalry game played by the Brigham Young University (BYU) Cougars and the University of Utah (U of U) Utes, nearly annually. It is part of the larger BYU–Utah sports rivalry. In this context, the term "Holy War" refers to the fact that BYU is owned and administered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) with a 98% LDS student population and the U of U is a secular, public university, which has a substantial LDS student population but is much more religiously and culturally diverse. Currently, the U of U president and head football coach are Latter-day Saints. The event is part of a three-way rivalry among Division I FBS universities from the state of Utah: BYU, U of U, and Utah State. The winner of the series wins a trophy known as the Beehive Boot. Both teams played in the same conference from 1922 to 2010, most recently in the Western Athletic Conference (1962–1997) and the Mountain West Conference (MW) (1998–2010). During the MW years, the Holy War was often the deciding game of the conference title. Despite Utah moving to the Pac-12 Conference in 2011 and BYU becoming an independent the same year, the two universities agreed to maintain their annually scheduled game. The series was briefly interrupted in 2014 and 2015 for Utah to play a home-and-home series with Michigan — the first time the series had been interrupted since 1943 to 1945, when BYU did not field a team due to World War II. The two-year hiatus was unexpectedly cut short when the 2015 Las Vegas Bowl pitted BYU against Utah, creating the "Holy War in Sin City" in the postseason. Games had later been scheduled as non-conference matchups until 2028, with another interruption in 2022 and 2023 for Utah to play a home series with Florida. In 2024, the rivalry became a conference matchup again after both teams joined the Big 12 Conference (BYU in 2023 and Utah in 2024).