As we all know the Utah Utes have dominated the Holy War rivalry overall. They have beat the cougars 49 times to our 30 and have tied 4 times. Now that being said 32 of those wins were in the first 33 meetings between the schools. I’m pretty sure that it is safe to say that was back in the day when football was an entirely different ball game. Back when all they had for the most part were leather helmets, the players averaged 180 pounds or so, and most of the game was played with the same 5 different ways of running the football.

Rocky Steele of the BYU News net throws out some interesting facts:

Things were pretty smooth for the Utes, until BYU hired a bright young coach named LaVell Edwards in 1972. Since then it has been almost all BYU, with 25 wins for the Cougars and just 11 wins for Utah. And that doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story.

The following facts should help clear up any misunderstandings.

BYU has won 21 conference championships since 1974, (’74, ’76, ’77, ’78, ’79, ’80, ’81, ’83, ’84, ’85, ’89, ’90, ’91, ’92, ’93, ’95, ’96, ’99, ’01, ’06, ’07) as well as two division championships in the old WAC (’96, ’98).

Utah has won four conference championships in that span (’95, ’99, ’03, ’04), and no division championships (one less total championship than the ‘Pokes of Wyoming).

BYU has had a top three finisher in the Heisman race seven times since 1979 (Marc Wilson 1979, 3rd; Jim McMahon 1981, 3rd; Steve Young 1983, 2nd; Robbie Bosco 1984, 3rd; Robbie Bosco 1985, 3rd; Ty Detmer 1990, 1st; Ty Detmer 1991, 3rd).

The University of Utah has had no player finish in the top three of Heisman balloting in history.

BYU has had nine players win major awards since 1981. The list includes four Davey O’Brien awards, two Out-land Trophies, one Doak Walker, one Heisman Trophy, and one Maxwell award.

The University of Utah has never had a player win a major award (Utah State has one more major award than the Utes — Merlin Olsen won the Outland Trophy in 1961).

BYU has 15 top 25 finishes since 1977 — nearly once every two years for the last three decades.

Utah has finished ranked just three times in that time frame, and only four times in history.

Now with that Mouth full being said I’m not saying that Utah wasn’t a good team back in the day, and I’m not saying that football wasn’t football. What I am saying on the other hand is, If the Utes want to take this thing to the books and prove who is the better football team rather then proving it on the field let’s do it.

Just from those numbers alone, in the better half of the modern football history as we know it, the cougars have not only dominated the Holy War, they have dominated both the WAC and the MWC, that BYU has been apart of. Now I know that I’m going to get quite a backlash of people saying that nobody wants to prove this thing on paper, and that all BYU fans do is live in the so call “GLORY DAYS” but hey . . . at least we have “GLORY DAYS”

The major reasoning for me bringing this up is the stupid comments that I have seen of late from Ute fans saying that BYU hasn’t produced anything good in a really long time. Well guess what Ute fans all you have is 2004 with Urban Myer, who hasn’t been here since 2004. For Utah fans to say that they have this one in the bag, and the they are the better team this year they have overlooked the last 3 years, including this one which we have 90% of our returning offensive starters from last year who beat you.

Everything aside this years Holy War is for all the marbles. This is by far the most important game that BYU and Utah have been ivolved in, for quite some time. Of course the win for both teams is very important because of what it means for the team and for the rivalry, but there is also a conference championship on the line, as well as a possible BCS birth for both teams with other losses happening around the country. All I have to say at this point is, I don’t think that either team has BCS on the mind right now, the important thing is coming out of Saturday’s game with a win.

Go Cougars Bring home the Mountain West title!