Wayne Howard Remembers

Wayne Howard was a lightning rod in the Utah-BYU rivalry, back when he was the Utes’ coach (1977-81).

Talking to him on the phone, last week, he seemed to me to have mellowed. He spoke of BYU’s teams in that era, saying, “BYU was very strong. There was that whole group of great quarterbacks, Gifford Nielsen and McMahon, Marc Wilson, geeze, they were really quite good.”

He went on to say he was “pretty friendly with LaVell” Edwards.

Asked about where the rivalry has gone since he was around he said, “I guess both teams are ranked, it’s like you’re a hotbed of football now.”

In spite of the nastiness of the rivalry, Howard stopped short of saying it’s more heated than others. Living in Myrtle Beach, S.C., he said “it’s really nasty in some cases here.” He went on to mention Florida-Tennessee and Clemson-South Carolina as big rivlaries.

“They’re always calling each other cheaters and things like that,” he said. “They’re pretty big rivalries.”

My memories of Howard are that he wasn’t all that extreme. Sure, he polarized fans by speaking of the “hatred” between schools. But he was a far cry from coaches like South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier and Tennessee’s Lane Kiffin.