Tag Archives: BYU Independence

by | November 8, 2011 · 12:19 pm

5 Questions: Should BYU join the Big East in football

There have been reports that the Big East is courting BYU. Bronco even mentioned it in his press conference, which seemed really strange after the BYU coaches and administration’s cone of silence in regard to conference realignment talk during discussions with the Big 12. Why did Bronco break this code? Was he going off script? Was he trying to signal to the press and fans that something is imminent? Why? Why?

Before I completely lose it, here are five questions about whether it would be a good idea to join the Big East in football. I am assuming (and this may be completely wrong) that BYU would, like has been reported with Air Force and Boise State, only join for football and not for the other sports.

 1. What does joining the Big East actually do for BYU?
The biggest advantage is easier access to the BCS than independence, membership in the MWC, or membership in a better football league (like the Big 12). The Big East is pretty wide open in football, with the program to watch being Boise State the minute they enter the door. Let me put it this way: I can envision a much better shot at multiple BCS appearances as a member of the Big East than I can if the Cougars joined the Big 12.

The big question about BCS access is whether the Big East will keep its BCS AQ status after 2013 (discussed more below).

2. Would the money be better?
Depends. Some reports show membership in the Big East as being less profitable than independence. I think eventually, yes, especially if conference realignment makes independent scheduling of late-season match-ups harder. But that’s a tough call, especially since we don’t know for sure exactly what BYU is grossing right now.

3. Would TV access be better or worse than independence?
Again, it depends. As we’ve all learned, it’s all about Tier 3 rights, baby! If we’re playing Rutgers in New Jersey, will BYU fans outside of Utah get to see the game?

Using the Big East home games for this weekend as an example, Pittsburgh on the road at Louisville is on several regional networks and online at ESPN3. South Florida at Syracuse is a Friday night game on ESPN2.

I can say this for certain: there would be less nationally televised games on the big ESPN networks (assuming BYU can’t keep its contract with BYU), but access would definitely be better than the MWC. But many fans outside of Utah might still have to jump through hoops to catch all the games.

4. Is the Big East stable?
No, but neither is the Big 12. I think the SEC, Pac12 and Big Ten have solidified their places in the college football landscape, and everyone else is scrambling not to be left out. I don’t believe the Big East is in as bad a mess as some say. The same doomsday scenarios were played when Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami left the Big East after the 2004 season, and while it made the Big East a mediocre football conference, they kept their card to the big kids’ table.

But can the Big East even keep it’s BCS status after a new deal is negotiated (starting in 2014)? Excellent question, but I think it can and will if BSU officially joins and they can add a handle of decent football programs. But that’s pure conjecture on my part.

5. If BYU doesn’t join a conference soon, are they going to be left out of the Super Conference realignment? Will they become irrelevant?
This is the pivotal question. Are Super Conferences imminent? I don’t think so, but many smart observers do, with a Super Conference playoff the gold at the end of that rainbow. And if you’re not in, you might as well be played FCS.

I know being left out of a Super Conference landscape scares a lot of BYU fans, and I’m sure the administration is keeping that in mind as well. If the entire system changes to the point that independence is no longer viable, the freedom of football independence could become a shackle.

Conclusion: Without, admittedly, knowing all the facts, I think BYU should hold for now. I don’t think the Big East will become any less desperate in next 12-18 months, so there’s no need to jump yet. And if Super Conferences are truly inevitable, there’s no guarantee that the Big East will even be invited to that party.

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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 22, 2011 · 10:25 am

Myth: The Cougars must win in 2011

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

Editor’s note: This post originally stated that BYU signed the deal with ESPN after the 2010 football season. That, of course, is not true. The deal was signed in September 2010. The post has been changed to reflect that.

You might have heard this one before: 2011 is a make-or-break year in football for BYU. With independence declared, with games against some major college foes, and with the ink on the TV deal with ESPN barely dry, the Cougars a disastrous season. If the season goes south, Tom Holmoe will be calling any conference in the country to get membership, and ESPN will kick BYU to the curb.

That makes for a nice piece of fiction, but I see very little truth to it.

Don’t misunderstand — winning consistently will be key to making independence as successful as it can be.* ESPN will not be interested in continuing the relationship if BYU puts in a bunch of 5 or 6 win seasons. And many fans will lose interest if the Cougars can only beat the lesser portion of their schedule each fall.

* But isn’t winning necessary in almost every scenario?

But 2011 does not have to be a tremendous success in order for independence to be viable moving forward. The Cougars could limp through the season, go 7-5, head to the Whatever Bowl, and ESPN is not going to disappear. Our future schedules will not instantly begin to resemble a I-AA program.

BYU signed this deal with ESPN before going 7-6, with only one win against a Top 50 team, and that was Washington in the first week of the season. If what independence alarmists are saying is true, how did BYU get 10 games on the ESPN family of networks the year after such a mediocre season? That includes games against Utah State, Idaho and New Mexico State, hardly marqee match-ups.

And you may have heard that the Texas Longhorns have also signed their own deal with ESPN and created the Longhorn Network. And this was after a disastrous 5-7 season in which UT wasn’t even one of the country’s best 50 teams.

Why would ESPN do this? Because they’re thinking long-term. BYU has a pattern of success since the late 1970s. There have been some down times (the late 1980s, the Crowton Era), but the Cougars are usually good, they’re entertaining, and they have a sizeable national fanbase.

Does any of that change if the Cougars turn in a 7-5 season? No. ESPN signed an 8-year contract with BYU, and they’re not going to back off just because of two mediocre seasons in-a-row. Would ESPN potentially broadcast fewer games in 2012? It’s possible, but the schedule will be good, and the young Cougar team is most certainly going to be better in 2012 than it will be this year.

I believe this is going to be a really good year for the Cougars. I predict they’ll finish something like 10-2 or 9-3. But if they finish worse, it won’t be the end of BYU football or independence. Everyone involved is in it for the long-term, not just for 2011.

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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 | · 2:55 am

Conference Envy Part 2: An Independent Yo-Yo

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

Five weeks ago I wrote a post that ended up being, well, about five weeks too early. The gist of the post was that I wished the Cougars had been able to join a conference, and that I hoped the ultimate goal of independence is eventually to join one of the big conferences.

The last several days have sent BYU fans on a roller coaster ride of conference envy or conference avoidance. Twitter has been my venue for watching the dialogue: some tweeters were adamant that a Big 12 invite was imminent and necessary, while others wanted nothing to do with a conference that appeared on the verge of collapse.

But now Texas A&M appears to be stuck in the (not so) Big 12. The butterfly wing flap that might have opened the door for BYU to the Big 12 appears to be closed again. Of course, that’s only until the next rumor starts, and the SEC leadership certainly didn’t close the door on future expansion.

I think most fans are viewing this incorrectly. They equate exposure with the number of nationally televised games (not necessarily true), or success in football equated to BCS appearances (probably true).

To address the first question, remember that the MWC formed the Mtn for a reason — the MWC was getting hosed by ESPN with a lot of weird times, especially in basketball. Fans (including myself), hated all the weird times. Though the execution was poor, many fans were excited about the possibility of the Mtn.*

*That was before we realized we wouldn’t be able to see any of the games that first season. Still upset about that one.

To address the second point, let me ask you a trivia question: how many national championships has Texas A&M won? You might have heard this over the past couple of days: one, all the way back in 1939. Ok, but let’s measure success by BCS appearances. That would be the benefit of having BYU join a BCS conference, right?

The Aggies have a total of one BCS appearance, back in 1998 when they won their only Big 12 title. Is BYU’s program better than Texas A&M? I think so, by many measures, but would the Cougars have done better? Would the Cougars have been in more BCS bowls over the past 15 years?

It’s impossible to know. But I do know this: since the Big 12 instituted its league championship game in 1996, the following teams have won it (and therefore automatically qualified for a BCS bowl): Texas (96, 05, 09), Nebraska (97, 99), Texas A&M (98), Oklahoma (00, 02, 04, 06, 07, 08, 10), Colorado (01), and Kansas State (03). Yes, every team has a chance, but in the past decade, only three teams won the title game, with the Sooners clearly dominating the conference’s recent history.

I want to be in a conference. A chance to play against the big boys (and a conference with Texas and Oklahoma would qualify) would be too much for pass up if I were Tom Holmoe.

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.

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by | August 6, 2011 · 1:41 am

Fall Camp 2011 is already better than Fall Camp 2010

by Matt Mangum

matt@loyalcougars.com

on twitter @matt_mangum

Two quarterback systems are so last year. Like, who would ever be seen rotating quarterbacks. Seriously.

There are several reasons, in my opinion, that this Fall Camp is already starting off better than last year. The obvious one is the quarterback situation. A year ago the internet was rife with speculation regarding what would happen at the quarterback position. The prevailing wisdom was that it was only a matter of time before Heaps took the reins. That turned out to be true, however the injury to Nelson was obviously unanticipated and unfortunate for him. The two quarterback system has almost never worked in football and the team will be better off with one starting quarterback. Especially this one. One of the reasons that I love Fall Camp 2011 more than 2010: a single starting quarterback.

The hype and expectations sorrounding Jake Heaps are a little intense. There is part of me that would advise Cougar Nation to tone down the expectations a little bit. There is another part of me that loves the excitement and the confidence in a sophomore who is yet to start a full season and is under the wing of a brand new, first time offensive coordinator. This type of excitement is much better than what we were looking at last year. It turned out that the coaches had a difficult time selecting a starter because neither of the top two guys were ready to take the job full time. But after a strong finish to the season and an offseason as the number one guy under his belt, Jake Heaps is as ready as he is going to be. This is more preparation than Max Hall had before his 2007 campaign. In 2011 we should expect a more finished product. Do I think he’ll get better every year? Of course. But I think that 2011 will be the tell tale sign of exactly who this kid is and what he can really do.  

The coaching staff has a much different look as well. It turned out that some of the excitement from last year’s staff was a smokescreen to cover for sideline and coach box tension. Bronco Mendenhall finally had the window of opportunity to put together a coaching staff that is aligned under a single philosophy and was really hand picked for the team and the program. Surprisingly enough, I am not going to go into any long diatribe about how I am more excited about Doman this year than I was about Anae last year. Mostly because that is an obvious point. But leaving Anae aside, Doman as the offensive coordinator has me excited. On the Rise and Shout Podcast counting down Adam’s quarterback rankings, Adam and I discussed the concept of QBs as coaches on the field. Two of the great BYU quarterbacks that fit this description are Steve Sarkisian and Brandon Doman. I think Sark was born to be a coach. I feel the same way about Brandon Doman. Everybody close to him feels that he will be a head coach somewhere someday. There is reason to be excited about this guy right now.

Overall I think this part of the season can be boiled down to a single word for BYU fans. Expectations. Last year felt like the great unknown. 2011 right now is a season full of promise. That is the best part of this Fall Camp. It’s all about the expectations. While there are issues to be worked out at this time of year, they appear less obvious and less extreme than they were a year ago. And the team appears better prepared to handle them. That is why Fall Camp 2011 is already better than 2010.  

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by | July 26, 2011 · 8:22 pm

The NCAA Should Just Start Over

By Adam Mangum
adam@loyalcougars.com
@ajmangum (Twitter)

I would like to blow up the NCAA and start over.

I realize that I’m in the minority. My rants against the BCS and the NCAA usually fall upon deaf ears when I talk to other college football fans, and especially to other BYU fans. With independence looming and coming off one of the best basketball seasons in BYU history, most BYU fans are not going to spend a lot of fan energy thinking about revamping the NCAA. Me? I can’t stop thinking about.

Whether it’s the atrocious cartel of the BCS, or bowl game corruption, or coaches who preach moral behavior to their players and then scam and cheat, the NCAA exists as one of the most profound and disturbing paradoxes of modern sports. An amateur athletic organization that is supposed to be about education and value, but at the top levels of football and men’s basketball is really about money and winning, similar to its professional counterparts.

This post is not about paying players. Writers at ESPN looked at that topic weeks ago, and I don’t think it’s the answer. And it doesn’t fix my biggest issues with the NCAA: fairness, transparency and corruption (though paying players might make the sports ‘less corruptible’).

Today I will deal with fairness of the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, or as we used to call it, D-I.

The BCS Conferences Are A Joke
“The SEC is awesome. No other conference can touch it.” “The Big Ten plays a brand of football that would wear down mid-majors.” “The Big East is a conference created by the gods.”

Ok, so you’ve never heard the third statement, but you’ve likely heard variations of the first two applied to the Pac 10 (now Pac 12), Big Ten, SEC and Big 12. The argument goes that if you put a successful mid-major like Boise State, TCU or BYU into one of those conferences, they’d be mid-level teams at best, crushed under the weight of BCS conference schedule.

Let’s say that’s true, that TCU couldn’t hang with the SEC. They certainly will do fine in the Big East. They would be a top team in the ACC. And I think they’d fare very well in the Pac 12, Big Ten or Big 12. But let’s say TCU really is a cupcake who would not challenge for the any of the BCS conference titles. My response: so what?

What gives Vanderbilt, Indiana, Arizona State, Duke and others the right to suck 9 out of 10 years and put together a decent season every once in a while? Tradition? Academics? Please. The conferences would have you believe that the mid-majors can’t compete with them. That might be true, but it’s true that most of the conferences are dominated by a handful of teams. TCU or BYU would have a much better chance at sustained success in the Big 12 than Baylor, but they don’t get the chance.

The BCS is a corrupt and evil entity
OK, maybe evil is laying it on a little thick. But if you don’t believe the BCS is a bogus system, you’re wrong. There’s an excellent book, “Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series”, that does an excellent job laying this all out. Suffice it to say, this is a self-perpetuating system that protects a small handful of schools and keeps most the money in their hands. And it protects schools like Baylor and Indiana who have less of a shot than Boise State at making a BCS bowl.

We need a playoff
Please don’t start with the, “But a playoff wouldn’t work” crap. In the “Death to the BCS” and other places, plans for realistic and profitable playoffs have been outlined. The evidence is irrefutable that a playoff could work and that it is likely more profitable for the NCAA as a whole. But it would likely reduce the total revenue for the top schools. If every other sport in America can do a playoff, I’m sure the geniuses at the NCAA could figure it out.

The one argument I understand in favor of the bowls is this one: it might be a better system for fans of teams that don’t win consistently. BYU was 6-6 this season, but still played a game in December. As a fan, I watched the game and was excited about it. A 12- or 16-team playoff would shrink the postseason a lot, and many fans who enjoy seeing their team make a bowl during an off year would miss that opportunity. (Keep in mind that most schools lose money on bowl games, so it’s not about the schools making money.)

But that’s easily solved: keep the bowls. Yes, the big bowls would morph into playoffs as potential sites for the final games, but the smaller bowls could continue to exist. ESPN wants the programming in December, and, as a BYU fan, would you have been less likely to watch the New Mexico Bowl because a playoff was happening? Heck, I watch BYU in the NIT. We’d all still watch out teams play in the toilet bowls.

The Solution: Blow it all up
A playoff would be a tremendous first step, but it only mitigates the problem. Whatever system was devised, the top conferences would still take most playoff spots. How could that be changed? By disbanding all the conferences and starting over.

It’s an incredibly radical idea. But this is how it would work:

  • Take all 120 FBS teams and divide them evenly into 10 conferences/divisions of 12 teams
  • Parity would be the first criteria. The 120 teams would be divided evenly as far as the strength of the program. This would not be done solely upon team performance over the past 3-5 seasons, but also by judging the strength of the school’s resources and fan base.
  • Geography would be the second criteria. Conferences would be designed geographically as much as is possible while fulfilling the first criteria of parity. This would minimize conference travel costs.
  • Traditional rivalries would be the third criteria. Where at all possible, traditional school rivalries would be maintained. That being said, it order to maintain the first criteria, it is inevitable that some rivalries may have to become non-conference rivalries.
  • The new conferences would them each get one automatic big into a 16-team playoff, with 6 at-large bids determined by a committee, similar to the NCAA basketball tournament. Each school would now have equal access to the postseason.

I know, you think I’m a crazy dreamer. I realize this little proposal of mine has less of a chance of happening than Lindsay Lohan finishing her degree in Provo. But it should happen. The NCAA should make it happen. TCU, Utah, Boise State and BYU should be fighting for an equitable system, not just a seat at the big kids table.

How would this effect BYU?
In my plan, no school could be independent. I realize that’s unrealistic with the TV deal of Notre Dame, but that’s how it should be. BYU would be assigned to a conference like everyone else.

I know a lot of BYU fans like independence, not being tied to some lousy conference that creates a lousy TV deal. The prospect of rotating through different BCS schools on the schedule is fun. But imagine BYU in a 12-team conference with the following (and I’m totally making this up): USC, UCLA, Utah, BYU, Boise State, Idaho, UNLV, Nevada, New Mexico, New Mexico State, Colorado and Colorado State. Wouldn’t that be cool? Couldn’t BYU win that now and again?And every conference would have a similar feel, and it would be a huge lift to programs like Idaho who would have home games against some awesome teams and would occasionally be on national TV.

I think a system like this would be more equitable, more fun, and would make things more interesting. I know it’s crazy, but I believe college football would be better with something like this in place.

“you may say I’m a dreamer
but I’m not the only one
i hope some day you’ll join us
and the world will be as one”

Adam is a writer and founder of LoyalCougars.com. His favorite BYU football players include Robbie Bosco, Glen Kozlowski, Erig Drage, Rob Morris and Brandon Doman. He also enjoys candlelit dinners. Adam has been blogging about BYU sports for several years, and was a sportswriter for the Provo Daily Herald many years ago.

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by | July 11, 2011 · 2:45 am

Podcast 25: Tanner, Jimmer and Harry Potter

After a month break, Matt and Adam come back with an absolute vengeance, and plenty of verve and vigor. They talk Tanner and Jimmer, and whether BYU’s ultimate goal should be getting into a major football conference.

  • 2:45 After the usual nonsense, they get down to business and discuss the BYU basketball non-conference schedule.
  • 6:10 Have you see the BYU TV app? It’s flippin’ cool!
  • 8:10 Jimmer is a King. Do we have to be Kings fans now?
  • 13:15 Tanner Mangum is throwing passes to HOF wide receivers this summer. But will he ever make an impact at BYU?
  • 19:20 Will Tanner be a replacement to Jake Heaps or a successor?
  • 24:20 What’s the ultimate goal of BYU football? Independence or a big, BCS conference? Adam says conference, Matt says not so fast. Insanity ensues.
  • 41:20 Matt will be covering BYU Media Day live on LoyalCougars.com
  • 44:05 There are some cool BYU independence videos on YouTube
  • 45:00 Adam commands you to see Super 8, and Matt admits to seeing the Justin Bieber movie. It’s good therapy.

That and so much more on the diamond edition of the Rise & Shout Podcast.

Read our stuff @ LoyalCougars.com and follow us on Twitter: @LoyalCougars @ajmangum @matt_mangum @byu_riseshout

 

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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 | July 1, 2011 · 11:33 pm

Dear BYU Fans, Be Cool.

by Matt Mangum

Dear Fellow BYU Fans,

Today is a special day. A day to be celebrated. Today is full of optimism and hope. BYU Football is free from the chains of the MWC. BYU’s other sports have found a home in the WCC and the WAC. Tom Holmoe successfully navigated a minefield of problems and appears to have lead us to the promised land. For that we are all grateful. Mr. Holmoe, we have never met. But I feel compelled to tell you, I love you man. I think we all do.

But a few words of advice for the BYU Fans of 2011.

First, be good to the WCC. The West Coast Conference looks to be a great place for BYU Hoops and other sports. Did you see the video on their website or the new logo today? I think that they are genuinely excited to have us and I think it is going to be a great fit. Show up to their arenas all up and down the west coast in order to support the Cougars when they come to your town. Purchase tickets, food and other concessions. Most importantly, be cool. Especially this year. Make a good first impression. Be nice to their fans. Be respectful of their institutions and their beliefs. We are guests in their arenas, even if there are a bajillion BYU fans in attendance. We are the new kids in the conference. Don’t be poor winners when we win and don’t be soursports when we lose. Build good healthy rivalries with new opponents. Most importantly, make BYU feel at home when they are on the road. Cheer like a crazy person. This whole thing is a new beginning, let’s do it right.

Second, today is not about BYU vs. Utah. We both got what we wanted. Move on.

Third, right now everything is super shiny and new. This feeling is going to wear off at some point. Something is going to happen and you are going to feel irked or jilted. It may be a football scheduling issue. You may get booed at a road game. The MWC will get an automatic bid (okay that last one is never going to happen). But when that bad thing does happen, remember this day. Remember how exciting this is. This is a great situation for BYU and given the current landscape this will continue to be a great situation for BYU. When the newness starts to wear off, think big picture. Access and Exposure.

Fourth, be patient. Football scheduling is going to be hard. Bowl affiliations are going to be in flux. These things will be sorted out over a matter of years instead of months. Mr. Holmoe and the rest of the BYU Administration have done a good job so far. Be patient when things are not perfect. Going independent was a move years in the making. It is going to take some time to smooth everything out.

Finally, All Loyal Cougars everywhere should Rise and Shout. Today is a great day. This is the beginning of something great. Put on some BYU Gear and enjoy it.

-A Fellow BYU Alum and Fan

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