Y. has been on both sides of hateful comments

Who in the heck is Chris Ello, and why did he say all those terrible things about BYU?

For those of you who might not have heard, Ello is a member of the San Diego State University broadcast team and a San Diego radio show host who made some awfully harsh, hateful remarks and accusations on the air Thursday, directed at BYU and its football team.

Among other things, Ello accused BYU's players of continually making racial slurs at opposing players, and in his rant he repeatedly slammed the school and the program for having "no honor" and for being "100 percent hypocritical." Among his other biting comments, he said that "BYU is the dirtiest, slimiest, most ill-behaved football team" that San Diego State's squad has faced every year.

Whew, that's a lot of hatred — which is precisely the word Ello used when describing his feelings for BYU — being spewed by someone who, in hindsight, would've probably been better off just keeping his mouth shut. It's unfortunate that his radio show offers him such a public forum to display his bitterness toward anyone — in this case, BYU.

Ello's comments came about in reaction to a blown call in last Saturday's BYU-SDSU football game, when the Aztecs were denied the ball on an apparent fumble by the Cougars' JJ Di Luigi. The potential game-changing play was reviewed in the replay booth but was not overturned. When Ello learned that a BYU employee was among those working in the replay booth, he went absolutely ballistic.

To his credit, Ello came back on the air Friday and apologized for many of the things he said, admitting that he spoke out of emotion and frustration after the Aztecs dropped the 24-21 decision.

The problem in all of this is that Ello apparently cared a little too much about the outcome of the game and seemed to take it much too personally when the Aztecs, who are enjoying a rare successful season, wound up losing to the Cougars — again.

He was rightfully incensed by what he perceived as blatant bias in the replay booth, which if proven would certainly be cause for anger and frustration — but is certainly no excuse to make such a harsh public indictment of an entire football program and its university.

However, it's quite common for most schools to have alums or others associated with the university in some regard to be involved in the replay booth in some capacity. So BYU was not totally out of line in this situation.