The Utah Utes’ rivalry football game with BYU was a triumph for Utah, but it was also a UteQuake extravaganza. No new records were set, but Rice-Eccles Stadium experienced epic amounts of seismic shaking during Saturday’s game that resulted in a 28-20 victory for the still-undefeated Utah Utes.
For the past four football seasons, University of Utah seismologists have monitored seismic energy generated by fans in response to big plays on the field.
Among the approximately 28 home games monitored since 2023, Saturday’s BYU-Utah game entered the books with four of the top 10 UteQuakes as measured by ground displacement recorded by a seismometer installed under the west side of the stadium, according to Jamie Farrell, a research associate professor in the Department of Geology & Geophysics.
The record-setting UteQuake came during the Oct. 24 Houston game when Jackson Bennee sacked the Cougars quarterback, forcing a game-deciding fumble recovered by the Utah defense with 2:15 left to play. The resulting UteQuake measured 0.0059 millimeters of ground displacement.
On Saturday, Nate Ritchie’s game-clinching interception with 13 seconds left on the clock came close to besting that standard. The seismic signal Utah fans created with their cheering and jumping peaked at 0.0057 millimeters of ground displacement and continued for nearly 30 seconds.
“That’s how much the ground moved,” said Farrell, who monitored the seismometer in real time and posted UteQuake seismograms on the University of Utah Seismograph Stations’ X account during Saturday’s game.
Farrell started the UteQuake project three years ago as a way to connect science and sports while highlighting the work of the U of U Seismograph Stations, which studies Utah’s seismic hazards and gleans insights into Earth’s inner workings.