Big 12 Fines UCF $100,000 Over BYU Chants and Adds In-Game Penalties for a Repeat

The Big 12 did not just fine UCF for what its fans chanted on Saturday. It changed the rules for every game that follows, so the next time it happens, the punishment can land on the field while the game is still being played. UCF will pay $100,000 for discriminatory chants directed at BYU during the Knights’ 39-31 double-overtime upset in Orlando, and the conference announced a new policy that turns a second incident in the same game into a competitive penalty. That second part is the story, because fines punish schools after the fact and this one punishes teams during it.

What exactly did the Big 12 announce?

Two things at once, and they should not be blurred together. First, the fine: $100,000 against UCF, directed toward student education initiatives, after the conference completed its review of the chants at Saturday’s game. Second, the policy: a conference-wide set of escalating consequences for discriminatory conduct at athletic events, effective immediately. A confirmed first incident brings an automatic minimum $100,000 fine and a formal warning, giving the school a chance to address the behavior and stop a repeat. A second confirmed incident in the same game brings an in-game penalty, a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in football or a two-shot technical foul in basketball, and may bring an additional $500,000 fine. Fans ejected for discriminatory conduct are banned from attending all athletic events for the remainder of the academic year and face their university’s fan or student conduct policies.

The conference statement, carried by ESPN’s Pete Thamel and reported by Bleacher Report, kept the two halves in one paragraph: “While the Conference recognizes the pregame protocols followed by UCF and immediate actions taken during the game, including removal of some individuals responsible for the conduct, discriminatory behavior has no place in the Big 12.”

What happened in the stands on Saturday?

Video shared on social media showed UCF fans chanting an expletive aimed at Mormons before kickoff, AP reports. USA Today reports that people inside the Acrisure Bounce House could be heard chanting during the upset win, and notes that the word Mormons is discouraged by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an incorrect substitute for the faith’s name. BYU is the flagship school for that faith, which is why the chants land as religious targeting rather than ordinary road-game abuse.

UCF did not ignore it in the moment. The Big 12 said the school followed proper pregame protocols, with the public address announcer stating several times that there was no tolerance for disrespectful or profane chants, and security removed some of the fans involved during the game. That mitigation is in the conference’s own statement, and it still did not save UCF from the fine. The message in that combination is plain: doing the pregame work and removing offenders is expected, and it is no longer treated as enough on its own. The game itself, it is worth remembering, was already one of the strangest of the season, as UCF stunned No. 2 BYU 39-31 in double overtime after a chaotic ending featuring a blocked kick, a helmet-off runoff and a disputed call.

What did UCF say back?

Very little, and the wording leaves room for a fight. UCF athletics spokesman Adam Widman said in an email Wednesday night, AP reports: “After becoming aware of the conference’s decision, we will be reviewing our options.” The school did not say it accepts the fine, did not say it will appeal, and did not dispute the chants. “Reviewing our options” is the kind of phrase schools use when they want time to decide whether a public challenge helps them or hurts them, and it keeps the story open past Wednesday.

There is also a second punishment UCF did not receive, from the same night, and it sharpens the picture. Fans stormed the field after the win and pulled down a goalpost, conduct that usually brings a $50,000 field-rushing fine. The Big 12 decided against that penalty after reviewing UCF’s safety preparations, EssentiallySports reports. Field storming has drawn heavy fines elsewhere, as when South Carolina was fined $500,000 after fans stormed the field, so UCF’s escape there was not a given. So the school escaped one fine for how its fans celebrated and was hit with a larger one for what some of its fans chanted, which tells you exactly where the conference now draws its line.

Why did the Big 12 go this far this time?

Because BYU keeps being targeted, and the previous punishments did not stop it. Colorado State apologized in September after fans targeted BYU and the church with derogatory chants during a 41-23 loss to the Cougars, and BYU coach Kalani Sitake addressed it after that game. “Everyone’s human and I’m not going to dwell on that,” Sitake said at the time, per USA Today’s Kevin Lytle. “You can’t judge the entire fan base on a few, so that’s what we’re going to focus on. The environment here was awesome, the fans were excited about their team.”

The pattern runs further back. The Big 12 fined Oklahoma State $50,000 in February after inappropriate chants during a men’s basketball game against BYU, AP reports, and fined Colorado $50,000 a year ago for similar chants at a football game. Similar incidents at an Arizona men’s basketball game in the 2024-25 season and a Cincinnati football game in November 2025 drew no fine. That uneven history is part of why the new policy matters: it replaces case-by-case fines with automatic minimums, so the next school cannot argue it was treated differently from the last one. The Big 12 had already shown it will police its own members’ conduct in public, as when it admitted a clock error stole Notre Dame’s last play in a loss at BYU, but admitting an officiating mistake costs nothing. This policy costs yardage.

What happens the next time a crowd does this?

That is the question every Big 12 coach will now have to answer in a team meeting, because the answer is no longer abstract. If a crowd produces a confirmed discriminatory incident, the school is fined at least $100,000 and warned. If it happens again in the same game, the officials can flag the home team 15 yards in football or award two free throws in basketball, and the conference can add up to $500,000 more. A coach who used to treat crowd conduct as the athletic department’s problem now has a direct competitive reason to care, and a crowd that used to chant with the safety of anonymity now faces ejection plus a season-long ban from every athletic event.

BYU, meanwhile, plays on into the teeth of its schedule. No. 8 BYU, now 6-1 and 3-1 in the Big 12, hosts Arizona State on Saturday and then plays at No. 6 Utah on November 7 in the Holy War rivalry game, AP reports. The Cougars will hear plenty on the road, as visiting teams always do, and crowds have already shown this season how quickly a hostile atmosphere can turn into a disciplinary story, as when fans threw objects after Georgia beat Alabama on a disputed no-call. The difference from Saturday onward is that the conference has written down, in advance, what happens if the noise crosses from hostile into discriminatory, and the second crossing costs the home team on the scoreboard.