Utah’s Bradlee Anae Did Not Say That Offensive Quote About BYU
Jul 26, 2019, 8:28 PM
(Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)
(Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – Pac-12 media day is supposed to be all about football with projections, preseason awards, and sometimes some trash talk.
While there was some of that trash talk between Utah and BYU, for the most part, it was relayed to the world out of context and attributed to the wrong person.
Utah defensive end Bradlee Anae was selected to the preseason Pac-12 first-team, but that is not what the potential All-American will be known for from media days. Instead, he will be remembered for a quote that was first not his and second completely put out of context — we have no interest in giving this irresponsible writer credit for how they sent out these tweets.
When speaking to USC, a member of their contingency put out this tweet.
“Best answer of Pac-12 Media Day goes to Utah DE Bradlee Anae. Asked about what it’s like to play BYU in Provo: ‘There’s nothing worse than playing in front of 60,000 sober white people.'”
That tweet was sent out at 4:46 p.m. on July 24. On the surface, that quote allegedly from Anae looks really bad and it gave BYU fans, plus others, an opportunity to pounce on that quote. However, if one knows Anae he has connections to BYU as his father played there.
The full quote from Anae was later tweeted out by the same person at 11:32 a.m. on July 25, nearly a full day later.
“The rest of Anae’s answer, for the record: ‘But all jokes aside, it’s a cool environment. LaVell Edwards Stadium has a lot of history. My coach Kyle played there. My dad played there. It’s a big place and the energy there is different. It’s a fun place for an away game.'”
As one can see, when putting the two together it is 100 percent clear that Anae was just poking fun at BYU but as an individual quote it can be damning.
On top of that, Anae never said the first quote in the first place, he told the USC group that he was just relaying that he heard that said elsewhere at Pac-12 media day.
Some BYU fans may have still taken the first half as a jab even if the tweet was presented in full context, especially Anae has riled up the Cougar fanbase once this offseason.
Especially BYU. https://t.co/MoTg6DeUVd
— Bradlee Anae (@BradleeAnae) May 7, 2019
This Is Not The Anae We Know
KSL Sports’ Alex Kirry was puzzled by these quotes as those words do not sound like the Anae he has known when covering Utah football. Plus, defamatory quotes from players are the last thing coaches want to deal with at media days since that becomes the story and not the focus on the season.
“Twitter went nuts in town,” Kirry said on KSL’ Unrivaled. “When I saw this tweet, I said ‘what on earth is that and it’s exactly what coaches tell you at media day to avoid.’ It was so different and so far removed from what we hear from the young man.”
“This is where it gets weird because hours later she tweeted out the full context of the question asked. … ‘But all jokes aside, it’s a cool environment. LaVell Edwards Stadium has a lot of history. My coach Kyle played there. My dad played there. It’s a big place and the energy there is different. It’s a fun place for an away game.’ That was the quote.”
BYU Fans Can Still Be Upset About This Quote
People sometimes hear what they want to hear and will take any little bit of a quote and take it as a jab even if it is presented as a joke or a quip in good nature.
That is partially what KSL Sports’ Scott Mitchell thinks could be the case for a section of the Cougar fanbase.
“I think if she would have quoted the whole entire thing at one time I still believe that people will hear what they want to hear about this,” Mitchell said.
“It doesn’t matter what we say but for whatever reason when we have an agenda or don’t like someone… we hear what we want to hear. We don’t really hear the whole context of things, we take a little bit of it and run with it and hold onto it. We have two ears and one mouth and should take the time to listen to someone,” Mitchell added.
This writer did not think of this in terms of the BYU and Utah rivalry and perhaps this didn’t know what a big deal it would cause since they are from Southern California, however, the nature of the first half of the tweet is clear to be mocking a fanbase and that is nowhere close to who Anae is.
The way this quote was taken out of context instantly took the BYU vs. Utah rivalry to another level and it is not fair to anyone involved since there was an irresponsible person who did a poor job of reporting the facts. Instead, they wanted to create a splash for themselves to get some social media attention.
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