Brotherly hate is my hope for BYU-Utah

The BYU-Utah rivalry, football version, resumes Saturday and here's hoping this is the year fun gets put back in dysfunctional.

Max Hall has left the stadium. He's left the entire state.

Hall will be remembered not as one of BYU's best quarterbacks who won 32 games as a starter and lost just seven. He will be remembered as the guy who said he hated Utah's fans and considered them classless.

People had said they hated the other side before. A million times they said it. If you count under their breath, make that a billion. But the difference with Hall saying it was two things: 1) He sounded like he meant it from the depths of his soul, like the Huns talking about the Anglo-Saxons, and 2) he'd just thrown the touchdown pass that won the game.

Geesh. It would be like Barack Obama in his victory speech saying how much he hated Republicans.

Talk about a gut punch. A mood killer. Hall managed to suck the fun out of winning. Not only did he launch a robust cottage industry of "Max Hall Hates Me" T-shirts, but he turned a 115-year college rivalry into something that needed to be discussed soberly and seriously, like in a, gulp, family council.

Anyway, Hall's gone, and let's hope it was just a blip, that this year the rivalry returns to good old-fashioned brotherly hate.

The healthy hate. The good hate. The loving hate. The kind you have when you're playing your brother in the driveway.

The BYU-Utah game is called the Holy War. It's called Church vs. State. But neither label is a good fit. Family Fight is more accurate.

Take my situation, which I think is fairly typical. My dad, Gilbert, went to Utah — and played football there. When I came along I went to BYU — this was back in the day when you could get a D in high school algebra and still get in — primarily because I had friends who were there.

And my son, Eric, of his own freewill and choice, and probably because I went to BYU, went to Utah.

If the trend holds, his kids will go to BYU.

The state is full of families in similar conflict. Not to mention neighborhoods. Also, many people attend both schools and have their own inner personal clash to sort out.