Culture clash: The Mormons and Catholics rumble in Provo

PROVO — Come Saturday, the stands at LaVell Edwards Stadium will be drenched in Cougar blue as the Brigham Young University football team goes head to head with the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

But patches of green will definitely break up the blue, said Notre Dame alum and Provo local Ken Fakler. More than 6,000 Irish fans from across the country and, yes, even from Utah will be there to cheer on their alma mater, he said.

"I'm sure we'll be well out-numbered, but we'll have a presence," he said. "Notre Dame has a lot of fans that just follow the team around and go to all the games."

In fact, the Notre Dame Club of Utah is offering a travel package to Irish fans, which includes a pep rally in Park City on Friday, as well as a tailgate party Saturday in Provo and group Mass on Sunday.

Notre Dame cheerleaders, as well as former Irish running back Allen Pinkett, will be at the pep rally, where fans will feast on beer and brats. And a local brew will be on tap at the tailgate party, going on all day.

"Notre Dame loves to tailgate, they love to have a good time and beer is always a part of that," said recent Notre Dame alum Zachary Hildebrand. "It's a little different than what you would find at BYU."

Alcohol aside, the game will be a holy war of sorts — a Mormons versus Catholics rumble.

But in the end, Fakler points out, the two church-sponsored universities have more in common than most schools, and he's not just talking about their losing seasons last year.

First off, BYU is to Mormons like Notre Dame is to Catholics, he said. And just as every LDS mother wants her child to attend a Mormon university, Fakler said his mother dreamed that he would attend Notre Dame — and he did, graduating in 1971 in accounting.

"We have the highest legacy percentage in the country — that is about 25 percent of each entering class are students whose parents, one or more, attended the university," said Dennis Brown, associate director of news and information for Notre Dame.

"So those who attended in the past were Catholic, so . . . that kind of becomes self-perpetuating."

And like BYU, Notre Dame also has it's own honor code called DuLac, which encourages honesty, integrity and equality amongst its students.

But when asked about the code, Brown said that he'd have to look it up — a sign that it's not as strictly enforced as BYU's.