Bryce Harper hates BYU
 

http://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/...s-he-hates-byu

I guess people on CB are freaking out.

News alert: a lot of Mormons hate BYU. A lot of non-Mormons hate BYU. A lot of the whole world hates BYU. In fact SI called BYU the most hated university sports program in the country.

Honestly I have a love-hate relationship with BYU. I love the sports because I grew up with it. But I could do without the mullah-type robo culture that can exist there.

The SI article from 25 or so years ago was kind of a joke in that the author who wrote it soon after came out with an entire book trashing Notre Dame (Under the Tarnished Dome). The magazine article was obviously just the warmup act to test the response, and BYU was the test market. But most people never made the connection. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the author, who I believe is now deceased had a reputation of not being very well liked or easy to work with and seemed to have an ax to grind with church schools and religion in general. Of course, he managed to piss off the entire Notre Dame fanbase, so that probably had something to do with how he was perceived forever after.

I've lived outside of Utah for the last 20 years and have never really encountered any BYU hate. Outside of Utah or the markets that have teams that BYU regularly beat the snot out of in the MWC, I think the hate thing isn't really there nationally. UNLV fans hate us for good reason I suppose. It was a rivalry, and there are thousands of BYU fans in Vegas to remind them of it. At one time I probably "hated" UNLV more than any other team, including the Utes. But I do like Dave Rice. And now that we don't play them that feeling has mostly moved back to indifference for me.

we are not good enough in any sport to be truly hated.

You have to have success to be hated.

But at the same time, we are not loved. That's partly why we can't find a P5 home. We are weird and difficult to deal with.