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Gordon Monson: The absolute key to the BYU-Utah rivalry game turns in a most angry, violent place

It’s somehow satisfying that in a modern age of nuanced and newfangled college football, the big rivalry game in the season opener for Utah and BYU on Thursday night will come down to the most primitive, the most basic of football particulars — the biggest men on the field, the ones too often referred to as big uglies, and the opportunities they create for themselves and destroy for the other guys.

It’s not everything, but it’s more than just something.

That may not throw a charge into Joe and Jill Sixpack, the people who only watch and care about what the quarterbacks and the running backs and the receivers do, but for anybody who’s spent a lot of time around football it is a thrill a minute, watching what these extraordinarily large Homo sapiens who muddy themselves and hammer their opponents in the dark reaches do.