Colorado State apologizes to BYU for fans’ derogatory chants

You get a group of adults in a stadium, and sometimes they say things they wouldn't say at work. That’s true everywhere. But what happened in Fort Collins crossed a line that has nothing to do with college sports and everything to do with basic decency.

The chants weren’t just trash talk. They were aimed at a faith—the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—with a venom that had nothing to do with blocking schemes or coverage. BYU players wear that faith on their sleeves, literally, and the student section decided that was an invitation to mock it. There is no version of fandom where that is acceptable.

Colorado State’s apology is fine as far as it goes, and we should give the administration credit for not hiding behind a canned statement. They named it, they apologized to the visiting team, and they promised to look at what their fans were yelling. That counts for something. But it’s worth asking why it takes a formal apology from the athletic department to make the obvious clear.

Conservatives have been saying for years that our public spaces are getting coarser, that the instinct to mock belief is metastasizing into something uglier than simple disagreement. Faith is fair game in the public square, but there is a difference between critiquing a theology and hurling insults at kids in uniform who are just trying to play a football game. This is a coaching moment for Colorado State, and we hope they take it seriously. BYU handled themselves with class, as usual, and that contrast is probably the most telling thing about the whole ugly episode.