Why is it called the Holy War? Explaining origin of BYU vs. Utah football rivalry originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Piety is hardly the first virtue one might think of when reminiscing on the game of football. And yet, that sentiment — and countless other ones linked to religiosity — returns to the forefront of the college football world for a fleeting moment in Week 9.
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BYU and Utah are set to duel in the latest chapter of the “Holy War,” a decades-long rivalry that cuts deep in the Beehive State.
The match’s name certainly raises eyebrows. It should draw even more scrutiny given each team’s impressive form in 2026.
With that, here’s what you need to know about the Holy War, one of college football’s most time-honored traditions.
MORE: How Miami ruled the 1980s and reveled in Notre Dame rivalry
Why is it called the Holy War?
BYU and Utah’s campuses are located just 45 miles away from one another. Despite this, they are diametrically opposed to one another in terms of campus culture.
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Brigham Young is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, giving it a distinctly Mormon flair.
More than 98 percent of the student body belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Young himself was a Mormon, serving as the church’s second president until his death in 1877.
Utah, meanwhile, is a secular and public university.
That’s not to say there aren’t students or faculty who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — head football coach Morgan Scalley and university president Taylor Randall are Mormons, while a 2019 survey conducted by The Daily Utah Chronicle found that about 36% of the student population identified as Latter-day Saints. Still, the numbers pale in comparison to that of its intrastate foe, hence the biblical moniker for the rivalry.
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It’s unclear quite when the feud became sacrosanct. Veteran journalist Dick Harmon recalled first hearing it uttered during radio shows in the 1990s in an op-ed for Deseret News.
The “believer vs. pagan” trope doesn’t quite reflect the nature of the two schools’ relationships to one another. Remember that Brigham Young fellow that BYU gets its title from? He founded the University of Utah.
The epithet is a catchy one, nonetheless. It has become a favorite in college football circles over the years, especially as the two sides have been true college football powerhouses in the past two decades.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
