Colorado State University has issued an official apology to Brigham Young University after Rams football fans directed profane, anti-Mormon chants at Cougars players during a game in Fort Collins, Colorado.
The apology follows BYU's 41-23 victory over Colorado State at Canvas Stadium on Saturday, where a chorus of "f*** the Mormons" rang out from the stands, marking the second consecutive football season that the Utah university has faced derogatory chants mocking its religious affiliation.
BYU improved to 3-0 on the season after entering the matchup as heavy favorites, drawing a large contingent of traveling supporters to Fort Collins.
Colorado State issues official apology after game chants
"Colorado State apologizes to BYU, its student-athletes and fans, and to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the chant directed at them during Saturday's game," Colorado State University said in an official statement.
"Mocking anyone's faith has no place at CSU. It runs counter to our community's values and to who we are. BYU's players, coaches and fans deserved better. We are addressing this with our students," the university added.
The Daily Mail has also sought comment regarding the incident from the Big 12 Conference, as well as the newly reformed Pac-12 Conference, which includes Colorado State as one of its member schools.
Coach Kalani Sitake addresses spectator behavior
Speaking to reporters after the game, BYU head coach Kalani Sitake took a forgiving stance, emphasizing that he believed only a small portion of the home crowd engaged in the profane chanting.
"I think the chants [are] mostly a minority of people and fans," Sitake said. "There's some amazing fans here in Fort Collins, so I'm not too worried about that."
"The guys are motivated to play football, no matter what. We're not going to judge an entire fan base on a few … of the ones that made their chants," Sitake added.
Following the final whistle, Sitake shook hands on the field with Colorado State head coach Jim Mora, maintaining that the vast majority of spectators in attendance had shown sportsmanship.
Students unite for record book drive before kickoff
The hostile stadium atmosphere stood in sharp contrast to events in Fort Collins earlier in the day, when student groups from both institutions collaborated on a charity initiative for the city's Children's Speech & Reading Center.
Students from BYU and Colorado State collected and donated a total of 3,000 books during the pre-game drive. Organizers confirmed the effort established a new single-event record for BYU's Cougs Care initiative, a university program designed to foster service projects during road trips.
Previous incidents in Boulder and Big 12 conference fine
Saturday's incident marks a recurring issue for BYU, the world's most prominent Mormon institution, which is directly owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Provo, Utah.
A year ago, during a 2025 game in Boulder, students at the University of Colorado directed similar chants at visiting BYU players. Colorado head coach Deion Sanders later issued a personal apology to the university.
"Don't indict us just based on a group of young kids that probably was intoxicated and high simultaneously... BYU, we love you. We appreciate you, and we support you," Sanders said following that 2025 contest.
The University of Colorado also released a statement condemning the behavior, saying, "Such behavior is deeply disappointing and does not reflect the values of respect, inclusion and integrity we expect of our campus community."
Despite the statements from university leadership, the Big 12 Conference fined the University of Colorado $50,000 for the 2025 incident.
"Hateful and discriminatory language has no home in the Big 12 Conference," Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark stated in 2025. "While we appreciate Colorado apologizing for the chants that occurred in the stands during Saturday's game, the Big 12 maintains zero tolerance for such behavior."
BYU releases statement on religious prejudice
In response to the latest incident, a BYU spokesperson pointed to a detailed statement released by the university last year regarding fan behavior at athletic events across multiple sports venues.
"We can all agree that there is certain fan behavior at athletic events that crosses a line. We would hope that more people could see that disparaging someone's religion crosses that line," the BYU statement read.
"There have been a few highly publicized chants at our road games over the past few years, but really, we hear these types of things often, with a variety of our teams, in a variety of venues. We're not going to make a statement after every incident," the school stated.
"We understand that us having to hear some bad words is a small consideration when viewed in the wide landscape of issues in our country or even in college athletics right now. However, we also believe that words really do matter, and we believe that we as a society should examine anywhere we can eliminate prejudice and hate," the statement continued.
"After these kinds of chants happen, we're always thankful for an apology from a university leader or an athletic director, and we hope that productive conversations can happen on those campuses," BYU noted.
"We hope that opposing fan bases can understand that when they are disparaging The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and/or its members, they aren't just disparaging BYU. There are members of their community, fans of their school and even coaches and student-athletes on their teams who are members of the very faith they are chanting about," the university emphasized.
"Ultimately, it's our hope that in times of increasing cultural division, athletics can be a mechanism to bring people together in positive ways. Religious bigotry is counterproductive to that, and while it can be disappointing and frustrating for BYU student-athletes, coaches, staff and fans to experience that on the road, we also recognize all of the incredible goodness that we find in various fan bases across the country. We want BYU Athletics to be a vehicle for showcasing that goodness, whether through the service tailgates that are happening before road events or simple acts of sportsmanship during the events," the statement added.
"While we'll never be able to control the amount of negativity we experience at a road game, we can always control the amount of positivity that we strive to share," the school concluded.
Political reactions and historical incidents
The derogatory chanting also drew sharp condemnation from Utah Senator Mike Lee, a Republican member of the U.S. Senate who earned his undergraduate and law degrees at BYU and is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"I'm not sure why, but 'F the Mormons' chants have become far too common at BYU's away games," Lee wrote on his personal X account. "Funny thing - the host schools generally don't seem to be the least bit concerned about it, even though all of them have many Latter-day Saints enrolled as students."
"And in the case of last night's game at the University of Colorado, it was so much more - meaning much worse - than a chant. It was hours upon hours of religious slurs and bigotry," Lee added.
The chanting during Saturday's football contest is part of a broader pattern of fan hostility experienced by the university's athletic teams. In 2024, BYU's men's basketball team was subjected to similar anti-Mormon chants during a road game against Providence College, a private Catholic university in Rhode Island.
