Tag Archives: big 12

by | October 6, 2011 · 3:52 pm

5 Questions: SJSU @ BYU

By Adam
adam@loyalcougars.com
@ajmangum

Did you know that San Jose State leads the all-time series 9-5? As usual, that nugget is courtesy of CougarStats.com. Of course, they’ve only met once since I was born, and that was a 1998 shoot-out in Provo. A ton has changed since then for both programs. So, as usual, I’ve got some questions and answers about the big game.

1. Just how badly will BYU beat SJSU?
I know that a lukewarm 3-2 start and Big 12 expansion talk have Cougar fans at DEFCON 1, but this team isn’t horrible, and SJSU is. I know the sportswriter cliché is “Look out, the Spartans have won two in a row!”, but they beat two other bad teams in Colorado State and New Mexico State.

Football Outsiders has SJSU ranked at No. 87 and BYU at No. 55. That’s like the difference between LSU and TCU, so let’s not oversell the Spartans. Anything can happen, but the Cougars are likely to cruise in this one by several TDs.

2. Who will start at QB? Will both Heaps and Nelson play?
The BYU coaching staff is silent on this issue, but I would be shocked if Riley Nelson doesn’t get the start and most (if not all) of the snaps. He proved it on the field. And as Greg Wrubell said on this week’s podcast, this is a results business, and Heaps has stunk in 2011.

3. Is the BYU defense good or not?
This unit can look very good and then very bad. After giving up a ton of yards to Utah State in the first three quarters, the Cougar D slammed the door on the last two Aggie drives. They have also looked dominant in stretches against Ole Miss, Texas and UCF, while looking terrible against Utah and in stretches against Texas and UCF.

I think the answer is that the BYU defense is good, but has some weaknesses against mobile QBs and big RBs. They will look really good against the Spartans.

4. Will the BYU rushing game find it’s groove against the Spartans?
Coming into the season, I thought the BYU rushing game would be very good, better than last year. OC Brandon Doman talked about a play-action based passing scheme, and I believed that three experienced and talented RBs would help open up the BYU pass offense.

SJSU is 95th in the country against the run, and their defense is 87th overall. This could be what the doctor ordered to get JJ DiLuigi, Quezada and Kariya going. But let’s not sugar coat this; the team is only averaging 3.1 YPC, and Quezada is under 3.

5. Will anyone still be awake when this game ends?
As someone who lives in the Central Time Zone, I’m not thrilled about the 9:15 CDT start. If it’s 41-10 in the middle of the third quarter, I make no promises about staying awake. I can guarantee my wife will be out before halftime.

And I think this one is a snoozer. And boy does my blood pressure need a snoozer in BYU’s favor.

Prediction: 41-17, BYU.

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by | September 27, 2011 · 9:27 pm

Podcast 36: Conference Expansion; Utah State preview

Adam and Matt talk about the craziness surrounding BYU’s potential entrance into the Big 12 and why it’s the story that won’t go away. They preview the Utah State game, and discuss whether BYU-USU is really a rivalry or not. They answer your questions from the TweetBag. All of this and loads of nonsense on the only podcast in America that will talk about “The Lord of the Rings” movies as well as how many snaps Riley Nelson will get on Friday. As always, listen here or on iTunes.

 

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by | August 23, 2011 · 6:22 pm

Podcast 28: 2011 Football Season Preview with Greg Wrubell

Host Adam Mangum is joined by two awesome guests. First, the voice of the Cougars, KSL’s Greg Wrubell, comes on the podcast to talk 2011 Cougar football.

  • 1:50 – Greg tells us what would have to happen for BYU to leave the land of independence. And no, not just an invitation.
  • 9:15 – The 2010 loss to Utah still bothers him.
  • 11:20 – Greg gives you his big surprise for 2011.
  • 15:40 – What will the Cougar offense look like this season?
  • 20:30 – Bronco Mendenhall and Brandon Doman are very different, but they’re a great coaching combo.
  • 23:25 – Greg is not that worried about the defensive backfield.
  • 26:45 – He retells his favorite BYU play as an announcer, and his favorite call.

All that and much more with Greg Wrubell.

Matt returns to help Adam preview the 2011 seasons.

  • 32:45 – Is Matt responsible for the earthquake on the East Coast?
  • 35:30 – The three offensive impact players
  • 39:42 – The three defensive impact players
  • 44:40 – The three games we’d watch even if there was a wedding scheduled right over them.
  • 49:00 – The three games that worry us the most.
  • 54:10 – Over/under 10.5 wins for the Cougars (send you angry emails to matt@loyalcougars.com)
  • 1:00:35 – Over/under 28.5 TD passes for Jake Heaps
  • 1:04:45 – Over/under 700 yards rushing for Jake Quezada

Plenty of nonsense, plenty of fun. Go Cougars! We can’t wait for Sept. 3.

 

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by | August 18, 2011 · 4:02 pm

What if the Cougars joined the Big 12 ten years ago?

By Adam Mangum
adam@loyalcougars.com
Twitter: @ajmangum

I love ‘What If’ scenarios. When I was a big-time comic book reader in the late 80s and early 90s, Marvel had a series entitled ‘What If?’  They would take popular Marvel comics story lines, and flip them with different facts and endings, exciting things like “What If Spider-Man Joined the Fantastic Four” or “What If the Avengers Lost the Evolutionary War”, my personal favorite.*

* I realize that I consistently re-affirm my complete geekiness with things I write on this blog and say during the podcast. If you want true confirmation of how geeky I really am, check out my other blog where I tackle tough questions like “The Top 5 Worst Love Interests in Superhero Movies.”

Bill Simmons has done this from a sports context, and there is a small genre of historical fiction that tackles ‘What if’ scenarios. It’s kind of fun to think about how things could turn out differently.

The ‘what if’ scenario we’re going to tackle today is: “What if BYU had joined the Big 12 10 years ago?” The genesis of this is the following: I was chastised on Twitter the other day for my concluding paragraph on a post talking about conference expansion and football independence:

But be careful what you wish for, BYU fans; an invitation to a BCS conference could just be a ticket to a decade of third place finishes and frustration, not one of multiple BCS bowl appearances, if such an invitation ever comes.

Was I showing a lack of faith in the Cougars? Maybe, but I view it as realism, not a lack of faith. Whatever you think of the Big 12 as a football conference over the past couple of years, it’s certainly better than the MWC, anchored by Texas and Oklahoma with some other good teams mixed in.

Why 10 years ago? It’s mostly arbitrary, but I picked Gary Crowton’s first year as the coach and went from there. Here are some of the things I had to consider and some of my assumptions as I wandered through the abyss of this academic exercise:

  • I gave BYU Colorado’s conference schedule and kicked out CU. I left the Cougars with their own out-of-conference schedule and left the results of these games as they actually happened. I only ‘simulated’ the Big 12 conference schedule.
  • I occasionally had to drop one non-conference game from BYU’s schedule because of the 8-game Big 12 conference schedule. I just chopped off the last non-conference game if needed.
  • I only focused on the regular season and conference championship games; I gave no real thought to bowl games except to say if I put BYU into a BCS game.

In case you don’t want to read my brief season summaries below, I’ll give you an overall summary: BYU does pretty well, considering that there are some of the worst BYU teams of the past 30 years during this time (thanks, Crowton). The Cougars won four North division titles, making it to the Big 12 Championship Game each of those seasons (’01, ’04, ’06, ’09). This translated into only one BCS Bowl: 2006, when an 10-2 BYU teams beat Texas to advance to a BCS Bowl.

Now I realize you can argue with any of the season summaries I have below. Some may think I was too optimistic against tougher competition, and others may think I am not worthy to cheer for the blue and white because of my lack of faith.

Take a look at the season summaries, and tell me this: What do you think would have happened with BYU had joined the Big 12 ten years ago?

2001: 10-3 record, lost to Texas in the Big 12 conference championship. No BCS Bowl.

2002: 6-6

2003: 3-9. Yikes.

2004: 5-7. Lost to Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship game after ‘winning’ the North with a 4-4 record. Don’t laugh; this is actually what CU did in 2004. Despite the mediocre season, does Crowton get canned after a season where he makes it to the championship game and is that close to a BCS berth? No that’s an interesting question. But since this is my imagination, I fire Crowton. Wow, that felt good.

2005: 4-7. Bronco’s first season does not go well, with conference losses to Oklahoma State, Texas, Kansas State, Missouri and Nebraska.

2006: 11-2. BYU’s presence changes the entire Big 12 picture. Beating Oklahoma in Norman during conference play means OU does not win the South, and BYU beats UT in the championship game. The Cougars make their first BCS bowl appearance, and it becomes as great what if that if the Cougars had won one more game, they could have been playing for a second national championship. John Beck finishes 4th in the Heisman voting and is selected by the Philadelphia Eagles with the 36th pick in the draft (instead of by Miami four picks later).

2007: 6-5. Mediocre year due to a very tough conference schedule.

2008. 7-5. Another tough year due to a tough conference schedule.

2009. 9-3. Had to fudge a little here and take out the OU non-conference game. But the Cougars have a 7-1 conference record and ultimately lose to UT in the Big 12 championship game.

2010. 5-7. No bowl game for these hypothetical Cougars, but Heaps & Co. win 3 of 4 to finish the year strong and the Cougars

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by | August 17, 2011 · 8:53 pm

Podcast 27: Jay Drew talks Fall Camp

Adam is first joined by Jay Drew of the Salt Lake Tribune to talk all about the Cougars fall camp.

  • 1:50 – How realistic is conference expansion? Where will BYU likely land?
  • 7:10 – The University of Miami allegations are likely to reverberate across the college football landscape
  • 10:30 – Chippy practices can be a good thing and are just part of football
  • 13:00 – The tight end rotation is beginning to emerge, and Austin Holt looks to be the top guy
  • 15:30 – BYU’s offensive identity will be very different under OC Brandon Doman, but not completely different
  • 17:45 – Jake Heaps is leading the team and looking good
  • 19:50 – Riley Nelson is probably the back-up, but James Lark is playing well
  • 21:30 – The defensive backfield is this season’s big question mark
  • 24:10 – Jay answers a tweet question regarding who’s going to referee Cougar games this fall

Matt and Adam reunite for incredibly witty banter and somewhat shallow analysis.

  • 26:26 – The usual ridiculousness, including confronting Matt about his hatred of Riley Nelson
  • 28:45 – Recapping the tight end situation
  • 32:50 – USA Today and ESPN are talking about the Cougars’ independent road
  • 35:15 – Are Super Conferences inevitable? Will BYU be part of one?
  • 40:50 – The Miami allegations could kill that program in many ways
  • 51:30 – Tweet Questions! Topics include the BYU-Utah rivalry, and a guy named Ziggy

It’s all this and more in another episode sure to be the best hour of your day.

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by | August 15, 2011 · 4:03 pm

Independence: Permanent future or flexible tool?

By Adam Mangum
adam@loyalcougars.com
Twitter: @ajmangum

As I wrote yesterday, BYU fandom was greatly stirred by the recent events regarding Texas A&M’s attempted defection to the SEC. Many are supporters of independence and see the Big 12 as a sinking ship not worth boarding, while others saw this as opportunity to get a seat at the BCS table.

I’ve read tweets and talked with a lot of BYU fans who seem to think that football independence is the ideal state for BYU football. Now before you laugh that group off the stage, consider these points. I don’t actually agree with them, but the first two have some merit.

  • BYU is not getting a BCS invite any time soon. BYU has been trying to get into a big conference, off and on, for most of my lifetime. Earlier ‘attempts’ to get into the Big 12 or Pac 10 failed. Though I don’t agree, I think history could teach us that BYU (for myriad reasons) is never going to be joining one of the BCS conferences. If that’s true, then independence is better than the alternative, which is joining a conference like the one we just left.
  • Joining a BCS conference could actually reduce exposure. One of the reasons given for BYU’s move toward independence was exposure for the program and the university. Holmoe & Co. have certainly delivered that, with a slew of games on ESPN and national distribution when necessary on BYUtv. You could argue that joining a conference could actually reduce exposure. For example, how many nationally televised games would BYU have if it joined the Big 12? Impossible to say for sure, but likely less than the current agreement with ESPN. I agree with the sentiment of this argument, but my understanding is that the Big 12′s agreement with the Fox regional networks expires after the 2014 season; national distribution would likely be key to a new TV deal for the Big 12. Regardless, joing a BCS conference would likely reduce the number of nationally televised games, at least initially. And like the Big 10 and Pac 12, national distribution can be, at least partially, solved through a conference network.
  • BYU is not going to ditch the WCC so quickly. We just joined the WCC, and we wouldn’t back out so fast (or so the argument goes). I don’t know the details of BYU’s agreement with the WCC, but I believe it was designed, from BYU’s point of view, to be temporary.  I would be shocked if Holmoe didn’t have a plan to quickly exit if BYU needed to.

So I’m not saying the ‘we’re better off indepedent’ argument is invalid. I disagree, but I see where people are coming from.

But let’s be absolutely clear about something: nothing Tom Holmoe or anyone else has boxed BYU into perpetual football independence. I think the administration is open to joining a stable, BCS conference but are prepared for extended life as an independent.

And that’s exactly as it should be.

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by | August 12, 2011 · 4:03 am

Podcast Episode 26: Fall Camp and Heaps of Expectations

Matt and Adam do the podcast from their new locales (Indiana and Minnesota respectively) and hit their mediocre midseason form.

  • 4:03 – Fall camp and the weight of expectations for Jake Heaps
  • 19:50 – Is James Lark ready to step in if Heaps gets hurt? He better be
  • 26:25 – Who might the BYU TE be, and will that group be any good?
  • 36:10 – Is Russ Apo the second coming of Michael Crabtree? Probably not, but 75% of Crabtree would be totally awesome
  • 42:10 – The Big 12 might be coming apart at the seams. What does that mean for BYU?

Of course there’s more, and you should listen to all 64 minutes to get the full greatness of this podcast. Tell your friends and listen often.

 

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by | July 5, 2011 · 3:03 am

Conference Envy

By Adam

I used to spend hours playing EA Sports’ excellent NCAA Football video game. I haven’t played it much in the past five years, but before that I was an avid player. The best part of the game was simulating seasons, picking a program, and building it into a national power. I spent many late nights playing games, recruiting, and then doing it all over again. I can’t tell you how many times I simulated 20+ college seasons in legacy mode.

I most frequently played as BYU. If you built up your program sufficiently, you would get wisked away from the WAC or MWC by an invitation to join the Big 12, Pac 10 or some other major conference. That was always my goal — build the BYU football program into a national power, get invited to a big conference, and then run off a bunch of national championships. I did this is every version of the game I owned.

Of course, the game had its limitations when it came to truly simulating reality. They did not simulate players going on missions. Though later versions did present coaches with discipline problems, it was not a good proxy for the Honor Code. And the conferences accepted BYU because of performance on the football field; there were no politics involving other sports playing on Sunday or snob programs thumbing their noses at the Cougars and their cute little religious university.

Despite the game’s obvious distance from reality, I was stoked every time I got BYU into a big conference, when during the simulation of the offseason, the invite from the big boys came. And I never simulated, nor really thought about, going independent. The goal wasn’t money or exposure for the university; it was to win a lot of national championships.

*  *  *  *

Last week I visited my in-laws in Utah, participating in two family reunions. After the reunions, we stayed with my wife’s parents in North Salt Lake. It was a great, rejuvenating trip. Though I haven’t lived in Utah for eight years, it’s always a familiar place. I even spent one day in Provo, hauling my three little girls around campus and to lunch at the Brick Oven.

One day my wife and I took the girls to the Discovery Gateway, the children’s museum downtown that’s part of the cool Gateway mall. Something stuck out to me as we walked around: there were a ton of Ute fans, many decked out in Pac 12 shirts. Heck, we even saw the U of U cheerleaders walking into the California Pizza Kitchen. I have spent a lot of time in downtown Salt Lake City, and I have never felt so surrounded by Ute fans.

Of course, it was the day the University of Utah was welcomed officially into the newly minted Pac 12. A rally was held at the Capital that morning, and I got to ‘enjoy’ being surrounded by a sea of red and shirts proclaiming the U of U’s entrance into a big-time conference.

All of it made me a little sick.

After their run of football success, it almost seemed inevitable that the call would come. Just like the video game simulations I ran years ago, they had been too good to be ignored. Yes, it came in a back-door fashion, after the Pac 10 was spurned by bigger fish, but on this particular day, I doubt any Ute fan cared about that. They had cracked the BCS party, and the fans were excited.

*  *  *  *

I would never presume to tell any BYU fan how to feel about any of this: independence, big-time conference affiliations, or anything else. But I do know how I felt seeing all those elated Ute fans last week: jealous.

I’ve spent the last several months getting excited about football independence, the chance to play teams like Texas, Ole’ Miss, and others, with exciting games every season against teams BYU fans have rarely seen. I’m still excited by the prospect of indepdence and I believe strongly that it’s a 1000 times better than staying in the MWC.

But as a BYU football fan, I’ve come to a realization: I want into a big conference. I don’t know if it’s the right thing for the program, the right thing for the other BYU sports, or the right thing for the university. But I do know that it’s what I’ve wanted for a long time: the chance to prove that BYU football can compete with the big boys.

My mind keeps returning to those NCAA Football simulations. I was always so proud, so excited to escape the WAC or MWC and join a ‘real’ football league. I imagine that a real invitation to BYU would make me similarly excited, only 1000 times more.

I am not naive. I don’t think a conference invitation is coming any time soon. I think the Big 12 might get desperate, but that may be years away. The Big East would like to expand its footprint, but I don’t think BYU would be a great fit unless they also added Boise State and/or some other western programs. And I think there’s a better chance of Salt Lake City becoming a tropical paradise than the Pac 12 ever extending an invite to the Cougars.

So I will enjoy independence, and also our membership in the WCC in other sports. But as a football fan, I haven’t stopped hoping that the end game is membership in a major conference and a chance to play elite competition week in and week out.

I think I need to go out and buy NCAA Football 2012.

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by | June 15, 2011 · 1:48 pm

The Strength of the Independent Schedule

Zach had a great post about BYU and the BCS exemption, and I’d encourage you to read that before starting this piece. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Excellent. This piece (and other things) got me thinking about the 2011 schedule and what we know about 2012. Brad Rock (among others) has argued that two things are true: a BCS conference will eventually come calling for the Cougars (hello Big 12 or whatever you’ll become) and that the 2011-12 schedules are pretty weak.

I won’t tackle the first question except to say that I think assuming that a BCS conference will come courting BYU in the next couple of years is not realistic. I’ll tackle the ‘whys’ another day.

Regarding the schedule, Rock wrote the following: “For every Texas, Notre Dame, West Virginia or Georgia Tech, there will probably be a San Jose State, New Mexico State or Idaho.” And my response is: so what? Won’t that always be true? Even if BYU played in the Big 12, wouldn’t they still have to play some cream-puffs like Kansas (or the Big 12 lousy team du jour)? And if you’re in the BCS conference, it behooves you to schedule cream puffs for your out-of-conference games because losing to a good mid-major can kill your BCS Bowl aspirations. So there’s no guarantee that the strength of your schedule would actually improve if BYU was able to join a BCS conference (especially if that conference was the Big East*).

* The Big East has received a bad rap the past couple of seasons. Though the conference is bereft of a top 10-type program, they are pretty solid (at least last season) and TCU, if the Horned Frogs can maintain momentum, might make the Big East better than the ACC or even the Big 12 in the long run.

I think Rock and others miss the point. The comparison isn’t versus what BYU’s schedule would look like in the Big 12 or Big East, but what it would have looked like if they had stayed with MWC versus going independent. Unless I missed some news, BYU did not have a BCS conference invite in its inbox.

Using Jeff Sagarin’s college football rankings as my reference (and excluding bowl games), I looked at BYU’s 2009 and 2010 schedules to see how hard they really were. According to his rankings, the average team BYU played in 2009 was ranked 73rd, while the average team in 2010 was ranked 68th; though 2010 was a bit better, they’re in the same ballpark. In both seasons the Cougars played 5 teams with rankings below 100, and 2 or 3 teams with rankings above 30. 

2011 will be a drop from that. I did the future rankings based on the final 2010 rankings, which is a flawed method because teams don’t stay that constant from season to season, but it’s a enough good proxy. The average 2011 opponent in ranked 87th; Idaho State is the big weight pulling 2011 down. Replace them with a team ranked 100th and the schedule looks more like 2009 or 2010.

2012 will be interesting. Using the same method above, the announced opponents for 2012 have an average ranking of 72nd, very much in line with 2009 and 2010. But the 2012 schedule is still in flux, and adding some top BCS teams (as has been rumored) or filling it with Idaho State would have a major impact.

My point is this: from a strength-of-schedule point of view, 2011 and 2012 will be very similar to the schedules of 2009 and 2010, and likely better than what BYU would have had in the MWC with the defection of two top 30 programs and the addition of only one.

This exercise only takes into account the potential strength of these upcoming independent schedules, and does not look at the extra money the program is earning through its deal with ESPN, the broader exposure the program will get through ESPN and BYU TV, or the flexibility the program has gained. But even if the schedules get no better than what athletic director Tom Holmoe has on tap for 2011 and 2012, the team is no worse off from a scheduling perspective than they were if they had stayed in the MWC.

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