It was a hard-fought contest, as it always is when these two teams meet. The Utes dominated the first and fourth quarters, while the Cougars dominated the second and third quarters. By the end of regulation, the score was tied at 20-20. In overtime, the Cougars edged the Utes 26-23 on Max Hall's touchdown pass to Andrew George.
If losing to BYU weren't offensive enough to Ute fans, Cougar quarterback Max Hall was interviewed afterward and said: "I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate their program, I hate their fans, I hate everything. . . . I think the whole university, their fans and their organization, is classless. They threw beer on my family and stuff last year, and they did a whole bunch of nasty things, and I don't respect them, and they deserve to lose."
As a result, I have been spending much of the weekend reading comments on Facebook or otherwise hearing war chants from deeply offended Ute fans, calling Max Hall the spawn of Satan and saying that Max needs to die, preferably by being drawn and quartered at the earliest possible moment.
Let's face it; Max Hall is a good person. He got caught up in the heat of the moment and said some stupid things, for which he issued an apology the next day. But did anyone catch the part in which he said that last year Ute fans at Rice-Eccles Stadium were verbally abusive to his family, poured beer on them, and made vulgar and obscene gestures? Did these people ever apologize to the Hall family? Somehow, that seems to get lost in all of the hoopla.
I do not condone what Max said. But I can understand why he would say it.
In 2006, I sat in the stands of Rice-Eccles Stadium at that year's BYU/Utah football game, rooting for the Cougars. Throughout the game, the Ute fans who surrounded my brother and me - from teenagers and college-age attendees to men in their 50s and 60s - were verbually abusive to us and directed a slew of foul language our way. This handful of rowdy fans was definitely "classless"; I have never been treated so poorly as an opposing fan at any sporting event. (The only saving grace of attending that game, in fact, was John Beck's TD pass to Johnny Harline as time expired, capping a 33-31 Cougar victory. You could have heard a pin drop in the once-rowdy Ute cheering section as we filed out of the stands.)
As a closet Cougar fan, I also once worked in the ticket office at several Ute football games. During that period of time, I heard countless negative and classless comments uttered about the Cougars and the BYU organization as a whole.
Again, I don't justify what Max said. But having had a few personal experiences with rude Ute fans myself, I do understand why he said it. Most anyone whose family had been attacked in that manner would feel the same way.
Further, some Ute fans tend to forget that Utah standouts Alex Smith and Morgan Scalley - otherwise good and upstanding people, like Max Hall - each uttered hateful comments about BYU in years past.
My point, and I do have one, is that in the BYU/Utah rivalry, it's a two-way street. Players and fans on both sidelines have said and done dumb things in the heat of the moment. And I'm not saying that BYU fans are innocent of mistreating Ute fans, either; classless acts have occured on both sidelines.
Fortunately, the vast majority of the people I know and am friends with, both those who bleed blue and those who bleed red, would and will never act in this inappropriate manner.
How does that apply to us, then - the so-called "normal" people who go to these games and root at these events? I think what happened to Max Hall's family is an important reminder of the responsibility we all share to stop verbal (and other types of) abuse if and when we see it take place, either by intervening personally or by contacting ushers to have unruly fans booted. There is a greater need for civility and common decency on both sides.
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