Is Utah a red state or a blue state? We’re not talking politics here, though it does enter the picture to a degree. We’re talking football — college football to be specific.
The University of Utah proudly wears crimson and white. Brigham Young University proudly wears royal blue and white. The rivalry between the two schools is one of the fiercest in the country. Fans are especially worked up in the week preceding the big game.
A new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found 56% of Utahns — including two-thirds of men — consider themselves avid or casual college football fans.
But which local college football team gets the most love in Utah among them?
The answer isn’t definitive but rather a plurality. Utah might best be described as a purple state when it comes to college football.
A new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found Utah is the most closely followed team (36%) among Beehive State voters who identified themselves as college football fans, followed by BYU (29%) and Utah State (13%).
Not surprisingly, all three are Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools — Utah and BYU in the Big 12 and Utah State starting its first year in the newly configured Pac-12 — and carry the highest profiles in the state. Utah and BYU have positioned themselves among the top programs in the country.
Seven schools in Utah play college football. Weber State, Southern Utah, Utah Tech and Snow College each picked up 3% in the survey. Another 8% say they most closely follow a team outside the state.
Showing your age
Diving into the demographics, the poll found younger and older fans follow BYU, while those in the middle follow Utah.
Gen Zers favor BYU over Utah 36% to 27%. Among baby boomers, BYU gets the nod at 32%, while Utah State comes in at 27% and Utah tumbles to third with 16%. Retired people, too, favor the Cougars and Aggies over the Utes.
The survey shows 56% of Gen Xers are Utah fans — the highest percentage among the age groups — while only 19% cheer for BYU. Among millennials, 40% follow Utah and 30% follow BYU. Utah State is a distant third among those age categories.
More men than women favor Utah, while they’re evenly split on BYU.
Religion and politics
Religion can’t be avoided in the Utah-BYU rivalry. Among those who identified themselves as Christian in the Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll, 37% most closely follow BYU, which is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Nearly a third follow Utah, while just over 1 in 10 are Utah State fans.
Almost half of those who self-identified in the survey as religious non-Protestant/Catholic root for BYU compared to about one-quarter for Utah. More than 6 in 10 who identified as agnostic/nothing in particular follow Utah.
As for Latter-day Saints, half support BYU on the football field, while a quarter support Utah.
Since we’ve touched on religion, we might as well get into politics, too, when it comes to college football fandom in the state.
Self-identified Democrats are big on Utah but not BYU. Republicans favor BYU, though the gap over Utah is much smaller than it is with Democrats. Utah has the edge over BYU among independents.
And 47% of Utahns in the poll who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 are Utah fans compared to 20% BYU fans. Among those who marked a ballot for Donald Trump, 35% roll with BYU, while 29% roll with Utah.
While some might find the new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll results surprising, a 2019 survey conducted by Y2 Analytics for UtahPolicy.com found 42% cheered for Utah, 31% for BYU and 8% for Utah State. Nearly one-fifth said another team. The poll didn’t include the other four football-playing schools.
Morning Consult conducted the state wide poll for the Deseret News and Hinckley Institute of Politics Aug. 6-11.