BYU football: Cougars turn focus to dreaded rivals at U.

PROVO — It is now officially Rivalry Week here in the Beehive State. Time to start talking up your team until you're red — or blue — in the face.

Oh, the BYU-Utah football rivalry is intense enough on its own.

But add in the 2009 elements — a pair of teams sporting identical 9-2 overall records and 6-1 Mountain West Conference marks, each with an outside chance of sharing the league crown should front-running TCU stumble.

The Cougars and Utes both enter Saturday's 3 p.m. regular-season finale at Provo's Edwards Stadium with Top 25 rankings, elbowing and posturing themselves for postseason bowl positions and trying to build on late-season successes.

Including Saturday's respective results — BYU's 38-21 worse-than-the-score-looked manhandling of Air Force and Utah's 38-7 thrashing of San Diego State.

Even BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall acknowledged as much in his postgame comments — that with the end in sight and a bowl game on the horizon, his team would have no trouble sustaining its enthusiasm headed into Saturday's Cougar-Ute clash.

"Maintaining that level through the course of 12 weeks is difficult," he said, "but I think with the nature of next week's game, there's almost an inherent emotion that comes with that anyway. Usually you're trying to tone it down if you can, because the players are so excited."

Mendenhall's tone-it-down efforts were already in effect. Quarterback Max Hall admitted the mandate from Cougar coaches was (a) not to talk right now about the Utah game, (b) to spend the weekend celebrating the Falcon affair and (c) to start their focus on the Utes come Monday.

But you know it won't be long until the bulletin-board fodder starts flowing from someone's mouth. And from either side.

Rightfully so, given the closely contested nature of the BYU-Utah rivalry over the years.

In the past dozen years alone, 10 of the 12 annual battles have been decided by a touchdown's margin or less, Utah's two BCS-busting seasons (2004 and 2008) being the lopsided exceptions.

And the '09 pairing will be a rubber match of sorts for a pair of fifth-year head coaches in Mendenhall and Utah's Kyle Whittingham. Both are 2-2 against the other; each have won once on the other's field.

BYU comes in having won 29 of its last 34 games, Utah 30 of its last 33 and — better yet — 23 of its last 25. Yet, one of those two losses was in 2007 against — you guessed it — BYU in Provo.

And so, talk it up, Cougar and Ute fans. Watch Hall, Dennis Pitta, Harvey Unga and Jan Jorgensen lead BYU against Utah and the likes of Robert Johnson, Koa Misi, Eddie Wide and David Reed.

All in a Rivalry Week contest so big and intense it's broadcast in high-def by two networks — the mtn. and CBS-C.

e-mail: taylor@desnews.com