Wayne Howard made the Utah-BYU rivalry a rivalry

Urban Meyer annoyed BYU fans when he started calling the Cougars "the team down south." Ron McBride irritated them by leading the Utah pep band after a win in Provo. Kyle Whittingham offended them when he turned down an offer to coach at BYU, his alma mater.

But the Ute coach BYU fans loved to hate most was Wayne Howard, who made it no secret the feeling was reciprocal.

Howard vastly improved an abysmal Ute football program. He had only one losing season in five years at Utah, from 1977-81. He beat BYU for the first time in six years. In his final season, he coached the team to an 8-2-1 record, which today would easily qualify for a bowl game.

Oh, and one other thing: He got the "hatred" out in the open.

Then he left.

Nearly three decades later, Howard is living quietly with his wife in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

And still wondering what's so bad about hating the team down south.

Howard was clearly not a BYU guy. He wore longish hair and sideburns and sometimes smoked big, smelly cigars. His assistant coaches were a rowdy bunch of kids back then, several of whom he brought up from Long Beach State, where he had previously coached.

He was emotional and his teams were prone to emotion-driven penalties. One halftime, he got the Utes so fired up they broke down the door to the Rice Stadium locker room.

During another game, he assailed the student card section for flipping the cards incorrectly.

"Yeah, I got after the student section, except they kept throwing the cards back at me," says Howard.

He took a program that had won five games in three years and made it respectable (30-24-2). If you toss out his get-acquainted first year (3-8), he was 27-16-2. In his second season, he led the Utes to a shocking 23-22 win over BYU.

But it was the previous year (1977) when he took the BYU-Utah rivalry to a different level by bringing up the H-word. With a 38-8 lead in the waning moments, BYU coach LaVell Edwards re-inserted quarterback Marc Wilson so he could set an NCAA passing record.

Howard went pyrotechnic.

After the game he said, "The hatred between BYU and Utah is nothing compared to what it will be. It will be a crusade to beat BYU from now on."

And it was.