PROVO - Despite living near BYU, Spanish Fork High's Richard Wilson grew up cheering for the University of Utah, and was especially gleeful any time the Utes beat the Cougars because he was surrounded by BYU-loving friends.
Naturally, when the highly recruited tight end made his college decision last month, he picked . . . BYU.
Highland High's Latu Heimuli is rated as one of the best high school defensive tackles in the country, and he has scholarship offers from programs such as Nebraska and Colorado, in addition to BYU and Utah. Whichever team wins Saturday's rivalry game is going to move to the top of his list, right?
"Nah," Heimuli says, "I just want to see a good game. A lot more goes into [the decision] than that."
The game pitting nationally ranked teams at Rice-Eccles Stadium may determine who earns a BCS bowl berth, wins part or all of the conference championship and gets in-state bragging rights, but it will not have much of an impact on the decisions of in-state football recruits, say coaches from both teams and many of the recruits themselves.
"Would I base one of the most important decisions of my life on one game? No way," says another undecided player who has offers from both schools, Timpview junior Chris Badger, a safety. "When you are looking at two winning programs, you are going to go where you will fit in the best."
Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said Monday that the game used to be important for in-state recruiting, but that is no longer the case because many commitments are now made months prior.
"It used to be six, seven, eight years ago [that] it was a big factor, but it is becoming less and less so with the early commit trend and guys making up their mind long before this game has been played," Whittingham said.
BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said roughly the same thing. Times have changed, and high school recruits are far more sophisticated now than ever before, due to the internet and the way programs are publicized nationally.
"I don't believe we are crossing over with the University of Utah on many players, with the exception of those in-state," he said. "Very seldom are we recruiting [the same] young men out of state, so we're probably only talking about a couple players a year."
Sure enough, that's the case this year.
BYU has commitments from eight Utahns in the Class of 2009 so far, but many of those pledged before the Utes offered. Spanish's Wilson would have to be considered the Cougars' big "win" over Utah, although Wilson said his decision was based more on BYU's success utilizing tight ends than anything else. His cousin, Chad Jacobsen, "caught maybe 12 balls in his Utah career, and [BYU's] Dennis Pitta had something like 10 last game."
The Utes, though, scored a nice get over BYU when it got a commitment recently from Northridge safety Chris Washington, a non-LDS player whom the Cougars really wanted.
"Really, it didn't matter in my final decision whether BYU or Utah was better this year or last year," said Washington, whose best friend, Peni Maka'afi, commited to BYU. "It was where I would be the most comfortable."
With several top uncommitted seniors leaning out of state - including Cottonwood's John Martinez, Timpview's Xavier Su'a-Filo and Highland's Heimuli - perhaps the last head-to-head battle left for the schools is for Bingham linebacker L.T. Filiaga.
His dad played at BYU and worked for the Cougars, while his brother played briefly for Utah. But Stanford is also after the 6-foot-1, 235-pound star with a high grade-point average.
Whittingham noted recently that the increased quality of Utah high school football has also changed the way BYU and Utah battle for in-state recruits.
"Now we've got more competition," he said. "It's not just us and [BYU]."
BYU running back Harvey Unga, who originally committed to Utah but changed his mind and signed with the Cougars, said he can't remember who won the rivalry game the year he signed.
"It wasn't that much of a factor to me," he said. "I didn't pay much attention to that, really. So much more goes into it."
