I work in PR and the Yewts made the mistake of not thinking through the second and third order effects of a message that only had appeal to a very small segment of their internal audience. The most virulent BYU haters loved it because they saw it as a snub of BYU...but everyone outside that circle saw it precisely for what it was, the Yewts wanted to trade a tough game for an easy game. The chickened out of one of the nation's favorite rivalry games so outside Utah...it was universally panned.

And it's the fail that keeps on failing because every time it gets brought up, the message returns. Utah wanted an easy game...so they cancelled a historic rivalry to schedule a patsy. In any language, that's shrinking from a challenge...or chickening out.

And now Utah is faced with BYU possibly running the table and having a season full of positive accolades...while they are losing at home to the perennial doormat of their conference and looking at a nearly impossible task to make a bowl game...again...and this time, they can't even rain on BYU's parade because they forfeited.

Nothing wrong at all with calling a spade a spade. It's not a rake. It's not a hoe. It's a spade. And it wasn't "strategic scheduling," it was fear. Fear is not a great PR message in any language. It's even worse in a man's game like football.