Utah vs. BYU football: Burn notice

Photo illustration for rivalry in the digital age story. Jeremy Harmon/The Salt Lake Tribune

Call it trash talk, cyber-style.

It reaches warp-speed during the week of the annual BYU-Utah football game.

As the countdown to kickoff continues for this year's battle between The School Down South and the Yewts -- as the teamst are often called on the most popular message boards, chat rooms and blogs -- fans from both sides make their harshest feelings known.

They use the easy access to the internet and its shield of anonymity as a vehicle for criticism.

The other quarterback's haircut?

A coach's mannerisms on the sideline?

The perceived academic shortcomings of the other school?

The attractiveness of its coeds?

In the 1990s, sports talk radio became an outlet for opinions on those kind of topics.

In the last decade, the internet has taken the ease to criticize and the mean-spiritedness of some fans much farther.

In the changing landscape, players and coaches insist they have learned it's best to stay away from message boards, chat rooms and blogs.

"I don't use the internet, so ..." Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said, smiling.

Utah academic All-American Zane Beadles said: "I don't have time during the week to mess with that stuff. What matters is the 11 guys on the field playing against each other. So that's something I stay away from."

A few weeks ago, Utah freshman quarterback Jordan Wynn learned of the pitfalls, as far as a college athlete is concerned.

A fake Facebook page showed up on the internet.

"I heard about that," Wynn said. "Somebody was guaranteeing victory -- that kind of stuff."

Calling it "just part of the deal of being a quarterback at a high-profile university," Wynn added, "There's not a lot you can do, except don't go anywhere near [the internet]. It's just negative stuff and everybody tells me I should stay away. So I do."

According to Utah associate athletic director for sports information Liz Abel, the university convinced Facebook to take down the fake site.

"But it took awhile," she said, "and once it's out there, people think it really was Jordan saying that stuff."

Abel continued: "We are always concerned about what our players post [online], and we have conversations with them. We basically say, 'Don't put anything out there you wouldn't want a 10-year-old or your grandmother to read.' "

Tom Cella of Utezone.com, a popular message board owned by Yahoo and run by employees who sign a code of ethics, believes "free boards" are more likely to be to used for unsportsmanlike reasons.

"When fans don't have to pay $10 a month or $100 a year," he said, "they can sign on anonymously and say anything they want. ...

"The anonymous nature of message boards allows fans to be more cavalier about criticism of the other team and their own team as well. That can add a lot of unpleasantness to a rivalry" like BYU-Utah.

Cella claims Utezone.com is "pretty tame, pretty moderated. ... We know the potential exists for things to get out of hand, but we try to be pretty strict on what gets out on our board. We don't want to be a board that helps breed contempt."

Steve Meyers of Cougarboard.com also tries to "keep it civil" but admits "there's [a hostile] interaction between fans, especially during rivalry week. There's no doubt about that."

Meyers tries to cater to his audience, however.

"... Because the people on Cougarboard are predominantly LDS, we try to keep things clean, as far as profanity goes," he said.

How does Cougarboard try to prevent fans from going overboard?

"We are self-policing," Meyers said. "People report to us if there is a problem. And we probably get a little more of that during rivalry week."

luhm@sltrib.com