The Big 12 has moved beyond apologizing after anti-Latter-day Saint chants. Its new “Respect the Game” campaign will put a sportsmanship message into broadcasts, venues and campus channels across the conference.
That is progress. It is also the easy part.
A polished 30-second spot can tell a crowd what the league values before kickoff. The harder test arrives if a chant starts after the game becomes tense: Who hears it? Who warns the section? Who has authority to stop it? What happens to the people who continue?
The campaign gives the Big 12 a useful prevention layer. The league still needs interruption and enforcement to work in the same building, on the same night, before another visiting team leaves with an apology.
What the Big 12 has actually announced
The conference says Respect the Game will begin with a 30-second sportsmanship spot. Longer videos will follow throughout the year, with distribution during most Big 12 sports programming, on digital and social platforms, and on campuses and inside conference venues.
That wording matters. The announcement describes a media campaign, not a new penalty schedule or universal game-operations rule.
The project grew out of offseason meetings among the conference, presidents, chancellors and athletics directors. The Big 12 created a Sportsmanship Committee in June, chaired by Colorado chancellor Justin Schwartz, to look for ways to make league environments more welcoming and respectful.
The first stories are deliberately positive. BYU’s Cougs Care road-tailgate service projects will be featured alongside Kansas basketball’s guest-services program and West Virginia’s tradition of sharing pepperoni rolls with visiting fans.
Cougs Care is a smart choice because it shows BYU fans entering an opponent’s city to help rather than demand special treatment. The program turns a road crowd into volunteers for local charities. It gives the conference something more useful than another lecture about civility: a concrete example of visitors and hosts treating each other like neighbors before they become rivals for three hours.
The league is right to show that side of college sports. It should not confuse a good example with a complete response to bad conduct.
Education, interruption and enforcement are different jobs
The public discussion gets muddy when every action is grouped under “sportsmanship.” A video, an in-game warning and a fine do not do the same thing.
| Layer | What it does | What fans should be able to verify |
|---|---|---|
| Education | Sets expectations before conduct occurs | Campaign messages are visible in venues and not limited to social media |
| Interruption | Stops a chant while it is happening | Staff use music, announcements, section warnings or direct intervention promptly |
| Enforcement | Creates a consequence after a violation | Offending fans are removed when identifiable, and conference or school policies are applied consistently |
Respect the Game directly addresses the first row. Reporting by The Athletic, published by The Salt Lake Tribune, says the Big 12 has also encouraged schools to use pregame and in-game messages, play music over chants, warn sections and remove offending fans. Conference fines and reprimands remain available.
That operational detail is more important than the campaign’s production value. A crowd does not need to agree with a message for staff to act on a conduct rule. Venue personnel need a clear trigger, a communication channel and support from school leadership when they intervene.
The conference has already shown that enforcement is possible. It fined Colorado $50,000 and issued a public reprimand after chants during BYU’s 2025 football visit. Oklahoma State received the same fine after the Big 12 investigated chants referencing the Latter-day Saint faith during a February 2026 men’s basketball game.
Those penalties established that the behavior can violate conference standards. They did not prevent the pattern from reaching Cincinnati in 2025 or Colorado State, now a Pac-12 member, in September 2026.
A campaign can reduce the number of people willing to join. It cannot replace the response plan when some do anyway.
The campaign should not make BYU the league’s fragile guest
There is a bad way to frame this issue: BYU arrives, ordinary rivalry becomes dangerous, and every host must tiptoe around a uniquely sensitive fan base.
That is not what happened.
Fans boo BYU. They mock play calls, celebrate sacks and make visiting offenses burn timeouts. Good. Road games should feel hostile in the football sense. The line is crossed when the target changes from a team to a faith and the people who practice it.
The Big 12’s decision to make the campaign conference-wide helps. Respect should not become a BYU exception. Kansas fans, West Virginia visitors, student-athletes, officials and arena workers all benefit when the same conduct expectations apply every week.
The league also chose examples from several schools rather than presenting BYU only as the injured party. Cougs Care gives the Cougars an active role in the campaign’s picture of conference life. BYU fans are shown contributing something to road communities, not merely asking those communities to behave.
That balance is healthy. It does not erase why the committee’s work became urgent. Repeated incidents targeting BYU and its sponsoring faith are the highest-profile test of whether the league’s standards mean anything when a crowd gets ugly.
TCU is a timely road environment, not a presumed problem
No. 10 BYU visits TCU on Saturday for the Cougars’ first Big 12 road game since the campaign announcement. There is no basis to predict a problem in Fort Worth, and none is needed to make the timing relevant.
The game offers an early look at the ordinary infrastructure around the campaign. Does the message appear in the venue? Are conduct expectations visible? Can fans tell that Respect the Game belongs to the league rather than to one school’s crisis response?
Those questions should be asked without treating TCU supporters as suspects. The point of prevention is to make standards routine before anyone violates them.
BYU’s football assignment remains much more immediate. The permanent TCU game center has the 5 p.m. Mountain kickoff, ESPN assignment and Amon G. Carter Stadium details. Our BYU-TCU watch guide covers access and the matchup, while the availability analysis explains why right tackle, the adjusted defense and kickoff depth matter.
A conduct campaign should support the event, not consume it. If Saturday is remembered only for Bear Bachmeier, LJ Martin, Josh Hoover and the result, that is a good outcome.
Three receipts would make the campaign credible
The Big 12 does not need to publish a dramatic weekly scorecard. It does need evidence that Respect the Game changes more than the commercial break.
First, schools should make their response protocols clear to fans and event staff. A venue code buried in a long game-day guide is technically public but practically invisible. The useful version tells people what conduct triggers a warning or removal, how to report it and who acts.
Second, intervention should happen during the event. Colorado State’s Sept. 19 apology was commendably fast, arriving before BYU’s game ended. Our analysis of that response found that CSU’s own policy already allowed removal and a minimum 12-month ticket suspension after ejection. The missing piece was not another statement. It was a visible connection between the incident and the written rule.
Third, the league should report institutional action without exposing individual students. It can say that a school investigated, applied its policy, improved staffing or changed an in-venue procedure. Fans do not need names. They do need to know whether “zero tolerance” describes a process or only a press release.
Fines still have a place. A $50,000 bill gets an athletic department’s attention and tells every member that discriminatory conduct can cost the institution. Fines work after the fact, though, and the money is paid by the school rather than the person leading a chant. They are a backstop, not crowd control.
The best result would be fewer penalties because prevention and intervention improved. That outcome can only be distinguished from quiet inaction if the conference explains what schools are expected to do.
Cougs Care gives the message a better center
Sportsmanship campaigns often fail because they sound like detention-hall posters written by a committee. Respect the Game has a better chance if its stories stay specific.
Cougs Care works because fans can see what happened: BYU alumni and supporters gather around a road game, help a local organization and leave something useful in the host city. Kansas’ guest-services program and West Virginia’s pepperoni-roll welcome are similarly concrete. They show hospitality without asking anyone to stop caring who wins.
The conference should keep that tone. Rivalry does not need to be sanded down into generic friendliness. The Big 12 sells loud buildings, regional grudges and games that can ruin a Saturday. Its conduct standard is more believable when it protects that atmosphere while drawing a firm line around discriminatory abuse.
Respect the Game is a worthwhile first step because the league has stopped treating each episode as an isolated embarrassment. The committee, the media campaign and the positive examples create a shared conference response.
Now the response has to survive contact with a live crowd.
The first receipt is the message. The second is a warning that comes quickly enough to matter. The third is a consequence when the warning is ignored. If the Big 12 can connect all three, visiting fans will not have to wait for the postgame apology to learn whether the conference meant what it said.
Sources and further reading
- Big 12 Conference, Oct. 1: Respect the Game campaign announcement for the campaign format, distribution, committee history and initial Cougs Care, Kansas and West Virginia stories.
- The Athletic via The Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 2: campaign and in-venue response details for the committee interviews, school guidance, continued fines and interruption tactics.
- Deseret News, Oct. 2: Big 12 launches sportsmanship campaign for independent confirmation of the campaign rollout and the incidents that preceded it.
- Big 12 Conference: 2025 Colorado reprimand and $50,000 fine and 2026 Oklahoma State $50,000 fine for the league’s official enforcement record.
- BYU Sport Nuts: football schedule and TCU game center for the next game and permanent event details.
