Top Rivalries Series: Part 3 Of 5, The University of Utah

BOULDER - When it comes to Colorado's Pac-12 rivals, certainly no one compares to Utah. Due to the geographical proximity of the schools, CU and the Utes have a storied history that goes well beyond the past nine years the two have spent together in the Pac-12 Conference.

This is the third part in a five-part rivalries series. The first looked at six of CU's seven former Big Eight Conference rivals and the second dug deep into the rivalry with the University of Denver.

For some sports, Utah is a heated rivalry, built on years of back-and-forth battles on the field. Or on the slopes.

With skiing, no rivals compare to Utah or Denver. The three schools have accounted for all but three national championships since 2000, including the past seven. All-time, DU leads with 24 national titles, followed by CU with 20 and the Utes with 13.

Adding to the rivalry among the three schools, Utah and DU both have significant ties to CU's skiing program—both of their head coaches skied and/or coached in Boulder. Fredrik Landstedt, director of skiing at Utah, was the Nordic coach under CU head coach Richard Rokos for the Buffs for three seasons, helping them to a national championship in 1995. Andy Leroy, head coach at Denver, was the 2000 national champion in the slalom at CU, and also coached under Rokos for two seasons after his graduation.

"For me, it's very difficult to not like [those schools] because those are coaches that came from CU," Rokos said recently in an interview on the Buffalo Stampede. "They were here as athletes and they were here as coaches as my assistants. It's a very fine relationship. We like each other, but we respect each other's territory and we fight for it...having friends in the program at Utah and DU, it doesn't lower our goals. We'll go ruthlessly against them and try to be better."

Focusing on Utah for today's rivalries segment, the Buffs edged Utah for two of its three national championships in the past decade in skiing. When skiing became a co-ed sport in 1983, Utah won five of the next six championships, taking advantage of CU's team being down and DU not having a program.

Rokos became head coach in Boulder in 1991 and revived CU skiing and has won eight national titles. In four of those national championships, Utah came in second. The 1995 national championship was decided by less than 10 points with the Buffs totaling 720.5 points to Utah's 711. The closest coed national championship in NCAA skiing history was the 1998 competition in Bozeman, Mont., when the Buffs edged the Utes 654-651.5.

CU won skiing titles in 2011 and 2013, both in Vermont, and both one spot ahead of Utah. However, the Utes returned the favor in 2017 when they topped Colorado 541.5 to 525.

Other Sports
Though the schools didn't face each other from 1962 to 2011 when they joined the Pac-12, the football series with Utah features 66 all-time games and dates back to 1903. The Buffs lead the all-time series 32-31-3. Recently, CU famously won 27-22 in Boulder in 2016 to close out the regular season and clinch the Pac-12 South title.

The football rivalry came to fruition in the 1920s when Utah became a perennial contender for the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference championship. The Buffs won just two games vs. the Utes in that decade, while Utah won eight RMAC championships between 1922 and 1933.

Things swung in CU's favor in the mid-1930s, going 5-0-1 from 1933 to 1939. In 1934 Colorado adopted the nickname "Buffaloes" at the Homecoming game, winning 7-6 over Utah. Byron "Whizzer" White scored 25 points in a 31-7 win in 1936 with four touchdowns and an extra point. It was a CU record at that time. A year later, he single-handedly beat the Utes 17-7. White returned a punt 95 yards, scored another touchdown on a 57-yard run, kicked a 15-yard field goal and kicked both extra points in accounting for all of CU's points.

And of course what makes a rivalry? Ruining the other's season, especially when the road team: in 1961, CU was riding high at No. 8 in the nation and undefeated at 6-0 until Utah beat the Buffs in Boulder, 21-12; fast-forward 50 years to 2011, and Utah could have made a huge statement, a win over CU in the season finale would have given the Utes the inaugural Pac-12 South Division title. But Colorado ended that dream with a 17-14 win in Salt Lake City.

Soccer's Utah rivalry has been back-and-forth, particularly since the two schools joined the Pac-12. All-time, Colorado leads 8-6-2, but Utah holds the edge 5-2-2 since joining the conference.

Just two matches in the past decade have been decided by more than one goal. Perhaps the most important win for CU was in 2017 as the Buffs needed to win the final regular-season match in Salt Lake City to advance to the NCAA Tournament. Megan Massey struck in the 12th minute for CU and Tatum Barton added an insurance goal in the closing seconds for a 2-0 victory as the Buffs won and were selected to the postseason, where they advanced to the second round. The Utes have won a pair of 1-0 decisions since.

The women's basketball rivalry with Utah has been nearly dead-even as Utah leads 19-18 all-time. The Buffs have won the important games recently, a 55-41 victory over the Utes in the 2012 Pac-12 Tournament, and a 66-56 win in the 2018 conference tournament.

One of the most memorable games in recent CU women's basketball history came in 2018 during the regular season in Salt Lake City. Utah built a 16-0 lead in the first quarter only to watch the Buffs pull off a shocking comeback and win 69-65.

CU leads the all-time series 29-24 in men's basketball in a history that dates back to 1914. The two teams have split the past six games.

In 1939 CU's win over the Utes on Feb. 24 clinched the Mountain States Conference title and CU again clinched an MSC title with a win over Utah in 1942, its fourth conference championship in five seasons. Recently, Tad Boyle won his 100th career game on March 7, 2012, in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament vs. Utah.

Though the Utes have had the upper hand on the final score recently, the rivalry has been tense in tennis recently. Three of the past five matches have been decided by one point, including a 4-3 victory in Boulder to close out the regular season in 2018. That was CU's first win over its rival since joining the Pac-12.

It's also been a good rivalry in volleyball where the Buffs trail 14-9 all-time. CU pulled off an upset over the 17th-ranked Utes in 2016 to close out the season and end head coach Jesse Mahoney's first season on a high note.

This is the third in a five-part series recapping some of CU's greatest rivalries. Look for more over the next two weeks.

Colorado University Athletics

Top Rivalries Series: Part 3 Of 5, The University of Utah

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