Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), ever since the beginning, have been persecuted. Not only lately, but we're literally the only "group" that an extermination order has been collectively ordered for, look it up. And it's naturally given many a bit of a persecution complex.

BYU is a proud school, with a rich tradition of winning. We're the only non P5 school to ever win a national championship, and have a rich heritage in all our sports.

So our dream, and I say dream as a minimum, has always been to be invited to play in the Pac 12. That's the conference we fit in geographically (the MWC was nice, and we were definitely the big dog in the conference, but the fact that the MWC wouldn't work with us on the TV rights, AFTER they said they would, so we were stuck on the never-found mtn. network, was tough. Look at the Pac 12 with USC, they weren't taken care of, so their big dog left. Same is starting to happen with the ACC). And not only did the Pac 12 not want us, but they didn't want us BECAUSE of our religion. That hurt. Bad.

Know what made it worse, like 10 times worse? Utah hasn't just been our rival, but we've ALWAYS propped them up. Back in the day, we wouldn't even have accepted a P5 invite if it wasn't agreed to take Utah as well. So when they got the invite in 2010 out of luck (since Texas and Okl said no) and we didn't, everyone felt left out in the cold as well. But you know how they say it can always get worse? Turns out on Utah's way out the door they tried to kill us as a program, look it up. It was the ultimate betrayal.

So yeah, us fans viewed it as Utah going to El Dorado with all the riches imaginable, and BYU being stuck, partly because of them.

As a result, our attitude towards the WCC was, admittedly, not great. Not only did we view ourselves as their equal, but also having to watch Utah, who we thought was our brother, put Pac 12 stickers everywhere, and STILL try to kill our athletic department for many years, was more than painful to watch.

I'm just trying to give you a more complete view of things. I don't expect you to understand, and there's still a lot more I haven't shared, but yeah, it hurt. And frankly, I think it was good for BYU to get humbled by St Mary's. You guys aren't just good, you're great. And I've heard from people fairly close to him that Randy Bennett is a class act, and I believe them.

I'm sorry for the vitriol we caused. Love you, brother.