Take the honesty out, too.

In this case, everybody is two guys, the teams' head coaches, the football dictators who are spewing untruths and blocking freedom of speech, as though they were old Kremlin partymates of Brezhnev and Andropov and Nevereverpopoff.

First, Bronco Mendenhall issues a gag order to his players directly after the Cougars' win over Air Force, forbidding them from saying jack squat. He's echoing the words of moms everywhere: If you've got nothing nice to say -- and you don't -- don't say anything at all.

Then, Kyle Whittingham says, in so many bland words, that Utah-BYU is just another game, just another week of practice.

"It's like any other week," he said after the Utes' 63-14 win over San Diego State. "We focus week to week. It's not like we were sitting here, waiting to focus on the BYU game. We take it one at a time, and they happen to be this week."

Blah, blah-blah, blah-blah.

Somebody insult somebody, quick, before we all go insane.

The Cougars never happen to be any old week, any year, any decade, and Whittingham is fully aware. They are pondscum, meant to be loathed and ripped and beaten soundly, and every Ute knows it.

The same way every Cougar knows every Ute needs, as a part of his college football experience, a good thrashing at the hands of the better players, the better men down south.

Whittingham's done a terrific job this year, coaching Utah about as well as anybody could have, guiding his Utes through their undulating-yet-still-glistening season.

But dude's a flat-out liar.

And Bronco told me to write that.

Yeah, he did. I swear it.

No, he didn't. But he should have and he would have, if he had any coaching cojones.

Some of the Utes tried to bust out Saturday night, one in particular -- receiver Bradon Godfrey -- actually let his lips loose.

"We had it in the back of our minds," he said. "We have one more shot at them. No last-minute miracles. My senior year, we are putting them down."

Good for him.

He tried.

Others made a weaker attempt.

"It's great to get part of the [Mountain West] championship right now," linebacker Mike Wright said. "But it means nothing. We have to take care of business against BYU."

So, that's what the Cougars have become, at least publicly, to the Utes in these modern times: a matter of business.

Not a despised rival. Not a bunch of cocky SOBs. Not garbage to be deposited at the curb.

A business item.

Maybe that reduction in priority to nothing more than a checkmark on an agenda, in and of itself, is a good bit of smack.

"I think it will be the craziest week in the history of the series," said Brian Johnson, in a moderately more noble effort.

"Everybody's anxious for the game and ready to play."

Still, that falls far short of the good old days, back when everything wasn't so managed, when candid words flowed freely, when Utes were pumping the Cougars' gas and BYU quarterbacks jawed with Utah head coaches.

Now, it's all so confounded careful and corporate.

Former Cougar linebacker Bryan Kehl laid down the best trash so far, and it was dumped on his own team, when he recently said if BYU didn't improve, the Utes would "mop the field with them."

He also said: "I hate Utah."

That's the spirit.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Monson and Graham Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com.