$100,000 Fine: Big 12 Sets Price for Anti-LDS Chants at No. 3 vs. No. 7

University of Utah fans will face a new financial standard if they engage in discriminatory chants during Saturday’s football game against Brigham Young University. The match, scheduled for 10 a.m. MST at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, marks the first time the Big 12 Conference will enforce its updated discriminatory-conduct policy against a BYU road team.

The policy assigns a $100,000 fine to a university for a first confirmed instance of a discriminatory chant. A second confirmed incident triggers a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty in football or a technical foul in basketball, along with a potential $500,000 fine. Players ejected for the conduct are banned from events for one year. The rules aim to curb behavior that has plagued the conference in recent years.

Utah sits at No. 3 in the national rankings, while BYU is No. 7. This is the first time both schools have played while ranked in the top 10. The matchup carries implications for the College Football Playoff and occurs during a period of heightened religious tension involving The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which sponsors BYU.

Utah President Taylor Randall addressed the student body on Monday, urging them to maintain decorum. “Be loud. Be proud. Be relentless. And above all, keep it classy,” Randall wrote. The Mighty Utah Student Section, known as MUSS, posted a similar message on social media on Sunday afternoon, stating that discriminatory behavior would not be tolerated and that fan conduct reflects on the entire university community.

First-year Utah head coach Morgan Scalley discussed the rivalry dynamics during a Monday news conference. Scalley and BYU head coach Kalani Sitake previously served together as assistants at Utah. Scalley expressed a desire for civility, noting that the toxicity often seen on both sides detracts from the competition. He emphasized that having two top-10 teams within 30 minutes of each other in the same state is a unique advantage.

The Big 12 introduced the “Respect the Game” sportsmanship campaign on Oct. 2 following repeated incidents. The league fined Colorado $50,000 in 2025 after fans chanted “(expletive) the Mormons.” It imposed the same fine on Oklahoma State earlier this year for chants during a basketball game. In October, the conference fined UCF $100,000 after fans used the chant despite prevention efforts by staff.

The chant has appeared at games involving USC, Oregon, Providence, Cincinnati, and Texas State over the past few years. Some Latter-day Saints have described the chants as hate speech, particularly following the 2025 attack on a Michigan meetinghouse. The FBI determined that attack was motivated by anti-religious beliefs against the church. Four people were killed and several others were wounded in that incident.

Brandi Hicken, a victim of the Michigan attack, wrote to Cincinnati’s athletic director after hearing the chants at a BYU game two months later. She described the truck ramming into the church building and the shooter entering the chapel while people hid inside. The athletic director apologized after receiving her letter.

Religious tension has occasionally affected the Utah locker room, as the roster typically includes about two dozen returned missionaries from the church. Starting safety Nate Ritchie is among those players this fall. University of Utah fans have not been accused of the specific chants, but the new policy creates a direct financial link between fan behavior and the university’s budget.

The game will be broadcast on ABC. Both university presidents and both head coaches are members of the Latter-day Saint faith. Brigham Young founded the University of Utah in 1850 and BYU in 1875. The proximity of the schools and their shared religious roots complicate the dynamic as the Big 12 attempts to standardize fan conduct across the conference.