It will be different after this year....or perhaps it already is.

This coming Saturday, Utah will visit BYU in football.  This will be the last time the two schools will meet with something on the line.

By kickoff, BYU is expected to be formally invited to the Big 12 Conference.  In case you have not yet heard.  You probably have.

The rivalry is taking a two year hiatus.  Next time the Cougars and Utes meet in 2024 in Salt Lake City, the Cougars will also be a member of a Power 5 conference, like their rivals who have been in the PAC-12 for a decade.

This year, BYU enters the game still unbeaten.  Going unbeaten in the Cougars only hope at getting into the college football playoffs or even getting to a big bowl game.  The next time the two meet, BYU could lose the game and still get a bid to the Sugar Bowl or even better.  Now, even if the Utes lose to the Cougars, they could still go to the Rose Bowl or better.

Next time they meet, it will be just for fun.  Hopefully the game is fun this year as well.  The game did not happen last season.  This year, under the spectre of the COVID-19 pandemic, and on the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and with the ending of the war that those attacks started, it seems like the game is less important.

Certainly to many fans, it may be just as important.  However, I do not see the same ribbing from fan to fan that I used to.  Things have changed quite a bit since the last time these two met in 2019.  While we are more divided, there is more than only football diving us.  Outside of football, you will find Cougars and Utes on both sides of the issue.

Perhaps this Saturday at 8:00 when things get ready to go down somewhere south of Draper, we can set aside what divides us, and weather we pull for Salt Lake County or Utah County, the Red or the Blue.  We can also remember that football is only a game.  Perhaps we can remember that Utah coach Kyle Whittingham once played for BYU.  Perhaps we can remember that BYU coach Kalani Sitake once was an assistant coach at Utah.  There is more that unites us that divides us.

We should remember that Utah and BYU have played in the Rose Bowl the same number of times.  That the Utes went to the Sugar Bowl first.  That the Cougars have more national championships than the Utes have.  Both sides have something to brag about.  Both sides have their moments of embarrassment and dread.

Or perhaps this is wishful thinking.  Perhaps more wishful than the Cougar fans hoping their team ends the streak this year.