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I never liked the term "Holy War."

It isn't accurate. It's too categorical. It doesn't take into account the nuances and the crossover and the comprehensive nature of what is one of the best rivalries in the country. And, make no mistake, the Utah-BYU game is exactly that — one of the top rivalry showdowns in all of college football.

Denying the fact, saying the game isn't necessary or important or worth playing, is rather ironically just one more bit of smack, one additional biscuit of disrespect thrown at an opponent that has been a heated rival for well over a century.

Everyone reading this right now will come and go. The rivalry will out-live and out-last all of us, even those who try to kill it or who deny its significance. They are relative short-timers compared to the rivalry itself. Putting Utah in the Pac-12 while BYU thrashes about in independence, trying to find a home in the Big 12, has altered the thing. The schools obviously no longer play against one another for a league title. But they do face off for everything else that has added fire to the rivalry for all these years, and most of that emotional explosiveness had more to do with those elements than it did conquering the old Rocky Mountain Conference or the WAC or the Mountain West.

It had to do with what every great rivalry has to do with: bragging rights and a general, harmless, less-than-literal sense of superiority, or, at least, the perception of that silly superiority.

Think Michigan-Ohio State. Think Alabama-Auburn. Think Army-Navy. Think Notre Dame-USC. Think Texas-Oklahoma. Think Florida-Florida State. Think Cal-Stanford. Some of those teams are attempting to beat a conference foe to win a league title, some of them are simply trying to reign supreme over those hapless SOBs in the other uniforms, the other football symbols — the logo on the helmet, the colors on the jerseys — representing a whole lot more than just that, even if, in reality, it actually represents only football.

BYU-Utah ranks right there with the rest of the best of them.

And like feudal armies repping cities or states or city-states doing battle a thousand or two thousand years ago, these football teams are doing battle now, not trying to conquer land or gold or booty, rather ,attempting to show that they — and everything they represent — are more exceptional and predominant than those who associate with the other brand.

What the quality of a football team actually says about those who root for them and who tie their identity to them is a question for the ages. There probably is no bona fide connection or reason for pride. But it exists in the biggest, best football rivalries, nonetheless. It always has — back to the days when fans wore raccoon and mink coats, waving their pennants and swallowing goldfish, and it always will, when fans text family members and friends and co-workers on their cellphones to rub in the results, one way or the other.

No matter what league Utah and BYU play in, their campuses will forever be located just 45 miles apart. And as long as both have football programs that compete at a certain level, fans of each school will want to know, no matter what the records are, no matter who else the rival team plays in the other weeks, who is better, head to head, on one given day in the fall.

If Utah remains in the Pac-12 and BYU ends up in the Big 12, the rivalry game might take on even more meaning, because there's no other comparative by which to measure, by which to answer the question: Who would win?

Back to the Holy War: The one thing that unfortunate moniker does do is it underscores one aspect to the Utah-BYU game that, at least with some people, intensifies the competition. It captures a slice of a greater divide in Utah, something that simmers here in day-to-day life, in politics, in the Legislature, among strangers and friends — the presence and influence of a predominant religion.

I never thought football and religion should mix, never thought differences in religious beliefs or non-beliefs should be reflected in the smoldering cauldron of a football rivalry. Hating for football might be OK, and, if it's sports hate, not real hate, or "spate" as I like to call it, it might have a healthy place. But using a football game as an excuse for genuine hate or to find some sense of actual superiority on account of religion, either for or against, is kind of sick.

There's no denying that dynamic exists in BYU-Utah, at least among some. But, hopefully, it can be deemphasized.

It doesn't define the rivalry because so many Mormons are huge Utah fans, so many Utah players are Mormon, the head coach is Mormon. Assigning that state-versus-religion tag doesn't work because there's so much we-are-they-and-they-are-we going on inside the locker room. And, on the other end, any Mormon who would see himself as better than any non-Mormon on account of the score of a football game, or for any other reason, doesn't understand his own religion.

Utah-BYU is great because of proximity. It divides cheering interests of husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, friends and families, neighbors and office colleagues, all of whom gather together, play together, work together, root against one another together, and live together.

As the Dave Mason lyrics to one of my all-time favorite songs go: "There ain't no good guy[s], there ain't no bad guy[s]. There's only you and me and we just disagree."

And that can be — should be — a beautiful thing.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.