This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The clock on the University of Utah's athletic website is ticking down until the school officially joins the Pac-12 Conference, with Friday's celebration on Capitol Hill featuring the league commissioner and other dignitaries.
The latest news involving the program is not necessarily a case of the Utes big-timing anybody. Yet they're disdaining the past and spoiling the present of college basketball in this state.
Utah's recently published 2011-12 schedule omits Utah State, which suggests the Runnin' Utes are hidin'. Is there any other way to spin this?
So if bringing these rivals back together takes legislative action, conducted inside the building where the Utes are staging their Pac-12 party on the lawn, I'm in favor of it.
Lyle Hillyard, a longtime state senator from Logan, already was backing a bill to require each state-funded school to meet three other in-state basketball teams annually, including one road game.
Although he's a USU fan, Hillyard was not specifically targeting the Utes and Aggies. Just the same, this interruption should inspire support for his proposal. I'm on the record as saying the Utah-Utah State football series long ago lost its value, but basketball is another story.
"I just think Utah owes it to the rest of the state to play those teams," Hillyard said.
The Utes will visit Weber State, but they may have confused Utah State with Montana State and Idaho State in building their '11-12 schedule.
Utah's playing of 18 conference games now (instead of 16) and having BYU become a nonleague opponent are practical reasons for altering the schedule. Giving coach Larry Krystkowiak a chance to rebuild is also worthwhile. But how much would it hurt the Utes to play USU instead of MSU or ISU?
In a way, I can see skipping one year of the series, even after the Utes and Aggies have played 223 times since 1908. Utah hosts BYU this season, so it would make sense to relaunch the series with USU visiting the Huntsman Center in 2012-13, when the Utes go to Provo.
That has to happen somehow. Ordinarily, I'm not an advocate of the government's tinkering with college athletics. But this rivalry is well worth the effort of preserving, and it would not be the first time the Legislature got involved for a good purpose. Hillyard's 1998 bill allowed Utah schools to keep the sales tax from event tickets, as long as that money went into women's athletics.
As an alternative to the home-and-home pattern of the rivalries, creating a four-team tournament at EnergySolutions Arena has some merit — and flaws. Supposing the annual first-round pairings were BYU vs. Utah and Utah State vs. Weber State, the Utes and Aggies might never meet.
Beyond that, USU students agreed to a major increase in fees for athletics, and they deserve to have Utah and other in-state opponents play in the Smith Spectrum. Aggie fans live for those games. Hillyard even suggests the trip provide some residual benefit to visitors.
"I know nobody likes to come to Logan," Hillyard said, "but once you get in a [postseason] tournament, the experience of playing in front of a hostile crowd has to help."
It once worked for Saint Mary's, which reached the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16 after winning a tough game in Logan in December 2009.
By the '13-14 season, Krystkowiak's program should have advanced sufficiently for Utah to deal with the Spectrum atmosphere. Regardless, the Utes should decide to resume playing USU, before somebody makes them do it.
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