For whatever reason, Salt Lake Tribune writer Scott D. Pierce can’t stop trying to troll BYU.

Two months ago, Pierce wrote a column blasting a young lady after she brought a sign to a BYU-Mississippi State game which read; “You can’t say Mississippi without saying sissy.”

Pierce went on to blast the woman for her sign saying, “it was embarrassing” and wrote about how the word sissy is a gay slur. Yet, it didn’t stop Pierce from using the same gay slur a few years back for which he got plenty of flak from BYU and Utah fans alike after he was busted.

Now that everyone is caught up to speed, the TV critic recently wrote another masterpiece which was titled, “Utah-Colorado easily out-rated BYU-USU.” For unknown reasons, Pierce thought he needed to enlighten the world by telling us that the Utes’ prime-time game (7:30 E.T) — with Pac-12 title implications between two ranked teams — had more viewers than the BYU-Utah State game which kicked off hours later (10:15 E.T) with NO implications whatsoever.

Gee-whiz, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

Add to the fact that the Aggies were already out of bowl contention and that BYU had already accepted its bowl invitation two weeks prior to the game, and you can already imagine why the BYU-USU game had a lot less viewers.

While Pierce did admit there was TV market differences, it didn’t stop him from taking subtle jabs as he tried to downplay BYU’s national and worldwide fan base.

If anyone has watched or caught a glimpse of BYU’s “road games” this year, there have been numerous times when you can explicitly hear the Cougar faithful over the TV broadcast. Some recent Tweets this year confirm the large gathering of Cougar fans across the country where BYU has played teams from at least seven different conferences (Pac-12, Big 12, MAC, Big Ten, SEC and Mountain West) this year.

It’s also funny that Pierce used an apple and orange comparison and failed to let anyone know what the ESPNU numbers really meant for the BYU-USU game.

Of nearly 60 games that have been aired on ESPNU this season, the BYU-USU game is still ESPNU’s most-viewed game of the season that didn’t include a Power 5 team. Also, last week’s TV rating (320K) was more than twice the average of a late night Saturday game involving a Mountain West Conference team.

Pierce’s latest column seems to be another clickbait attempt to once again make a story out of nothing.

It’s been said on both sides that the Holy War between BYU and Utah has become too “toxic” which has led to a number of games being canceled or postponed the past few years.

But it’s absurd articles and columns like what Pierce just wrote that grows that divide. BYU head coach Kalani Sitake has made great strides in making the rivalry less heated since taking over the head coaching duties this year. Sitake still has a lot of friends on the Ute sidelines after having coached there for many years. The first-year head coach showed his class by shaking hands and giving hugs to former coaches and players right after suffering a heartbreaking 20-19 loss on the road.

And just recently a number of University of Utah coaches paid a touching tribute to former NFL player and BYU running backs coach Reno Mahe who was in the hospital after his three-year-old daughter ended up passing away from a very tragic accident.

Is Pierce going to write a nice story about how the rivalry can be put on hold to help each other out, or will he make another silly comparison of which coaching staff has made more hospital visits than the other and why that’s going to keep BYU out of the Big 12?

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