The 2015 Las Vegas Bowl was a post-season American

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

bowl game In North America, a bowl game, or simply bowl, is one of a number of postseason college football games primarily played by NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams. For most of its history, the FBS did not use a playoff tourname ...

played on December 19, 2015, at

Sam Boyd Stadium Sam Boyd Stadium (formerly the Las Vegas Silver Bowl) is a closed American football, football stadium in Whitney, Nevada, an unincorporated community in the Las Vegas Valley. It honors Sam Boyd (1910–1993), a major figure in the hotel and casin ...

in the

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

suburb of

Whitney, Nevada Whitney (formerly East Las Vegas) is an unincorporated town and census-designated place in Clark County, Nevada, United States. The population was 38,585 at the 2010 census. Background Stowell E. Whitney, a dairy farmer from Bunkerville, Nev ...

. The 24th edition of the

Las Vegas Bowl The Las Vegas Bowl is an NCAA Division I FBS annual post-season college football bowl game held in the Las Vegas area. First played in 1992, the bowl was originally held at the 40,000-seat Sam Boyd Stadium in Whitney, Nevada, before moving t ...

featured the

BYU Cougars The BYU Cougars are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Brigham Young University (BYU), located in Provo, Utah. BYU fields 21 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) varsity athletic teams. They are a member of the Big 12 C ...

against the

Utah Utes The Utah Utes are the college athletics in the United States, intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of Utah, located in Salt Lake City. The athletic department is named after the Ute tribe of Native Americans in the Unite ...

, earning the game the moniker the Holy War in Sin City (named for the "

Holy War A religious war or a war of religion, sometimes also known as a holy war (), is a war and conflict which is primarily caused or justified by differences in religion and beliefs. In the modern period, there are frequent debates over the extent t ...

" rivalry game and the "

Sin City ''Sin City'' is a series of neo-noir Comic book, comics by American comic book writer-artist Frank Miller. The first story originally appeared in ''Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special'' (April 1991), and continued in ''Dark Horse Prese ...

" nickname for Las Vegas). The game sold out 24 hours after the matchup was announced. It began at 12:30 p.m. PST and aired on

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

. It was one of the 2015–16 bowl games that concluded the 2015 FBS football season. Sponsored by lubricant manufacturer

Royal Purple Tyrian purple ( ''porphúra''; ), also known as royal purple, imperial purple, or imperial dye, is a reddish-purple natural dye. The name Tyrian refers to Tyre, Lebanon, once Phoenicia. It is secreted by several species of predatory sea snails ...

, it was officially known as the Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl.

Teams

The game featured the

against their state rival, the

. It was the 96th meeting in the

rivalry, with Utah leading the series 57–34–4 entering the game. The two schools are apart, approximately an hour's drive on

Interstate 15 Interstate 15 (I-15) is a major Interstate Highway in the Western United States, running through Southern California and the Intermountain West. I-15 begins near the Mexican border in San Diego County and stretches north to Alberta, Ca ...

. The name refers to the fact that BYU is owned and administered by

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...

(LDS Church), the largest church in Mormonism, while Utah is a secular and

public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant funding from a government. Whether a national university is considered public varies from o ...

with a substantial LDS student population. Their previous meeting before the Las Vegas Bowl was in 2013, when the Utes defeated the Cougars 20–13 in Provo. In addition to determining the Las Vegas Bowl Champion, the game decided the 2015 Beehive Boot champion. The game cut short a scheduled hiatus in the rivalry; the teams had not played in the 2014 or 2015 regular seasons in but would resume doing so in 2016 to allow Utah to play a home-and-home against Michigan.

BYU Cougars

After finishing their regular season with a 9–3 record, bowl director John Saccenti extended an invitation for the Cougars to play in the game, which they accepted. This was the Cougars' sixth Las Vegas Bowl, extending their record for most appearances in the game. So far, the Cougars are 3–2 in the Las Vegas Bowl, having appeared in five consecutive games from

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

until

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

. It was the final game at BYU for head coach

Bronco Mendenhall Marc Bronco Clay Mendenhall (born February 21, 1966) is an American college football coach who is the head coach at Utah State University (USU). He was previously the head coach at the University of New Mexico (UNM) for the 2024 season, the Unive ...

, who accepted the same position with the

Virginia Cavaliers The Virginia Cavaliers, also known as Wahoos or Hoos, are the athletic teams representing the University of Virginia, located in Charlottesville. The Cavaliers compete at the NCAA Division I level ( FBS for football), in the Atlantic Coast C ...

on December 4, and for assistant coaches

Robert Anae Robert Anae (born December 21, 1958) is an American college football coach and former player. Most recently, he was the offensive coordinator (OC) for NC State, a position he held from December 2022 until being released in December 2024. Prior to ...

, Garett Tujague, Mark Atuaia,

Jason Beck Jason Beck may refer to: * Chilly Gonzales Jason Charles Beck (born 20 March 1972), professionally known as Chilly Gonzales or just Gonzales, is a Canadian musician, songwriter, and producer. Currently based in Cologne, Germany, he previously li ...

, Nick Howell, and

Kelly Poppinga Kelly Scott Poppinga (born January 31, 1982) is an American football coach and former player. He is the special teams coordinator and defensive ends coach at Brigham Young University (BYU). He is the younger brother of National Football League (N ...

, who accepted positions on Virginia's new coaching staff. During the postgame interviews, athletic director

Tom Holmoe Thomas Allen Holmoe (born March 7, 1960) is an American college athletics administrator and former football player and coach. He has been the athletic director at Brigham Young University (BYU) since 2005. Holmoe played college football at BYU ...

stepped in during one segment and announced that

Kalani Sitake Kelaokalani Fifita "Kalani" Sitake (born October 10, 1975) is a Tongan–American American football, football coach and former player. He has been the head football coach at Brigham Young University (BYU) since 2015, and is the first Demographic ...

had been officially hired to be the new head coach of BYU.

Utah Utes

The Utes had started the season with 6 straight victories, rising to as high as #3 in the Playoff rankings. However a loss to USC derailed hopes for a playoff bid and conference championship. They lost two of their next five games and finished as co-champions of the South Division. They did not play in the Conference Championship due to their loss to USC. Also, they won the previous year's Las Vegas Bowl, defeating former conference mates Colorado State 45–10. On December 6, it was announced that the Utes were invited to the Las Vegas Bowl. This was their fifth overall Las Vegas Bowl appearance. The Utes posted a 3–1 record overall in the Las Vegas Bowl entering this game.

Game summary

Scoring summary

Source:

Statistics

References

{{Utah Utes bowl game navbox

Las Vegas Bowl BYU Cougars football bowl games Utah Utes football bowl games

December 2015 sports events in the United States