Hi All.
Just to waste a couple of minutes on my lunch break, I went to KFan and listened to some of the older posts on BYU football. One in particular had a section where David Locke and PK discussed Utah's scheduling vs. BYU's scheduling. I could hardly stand it. They kept saying that BYU was "scheduling down" this year because of what Hawaii did last year to get to a BSC game.

This is crazy. Don't they know that these schedules are largely determined 2-3 years (and sometimes more) in advance? When we scheduled UCLA and Washington, Hawaii wasn't even a glimmer in the BSC's eye!

Anyway, Locke went on to say that the way that other big-conference teams schedule down is by putting MWC teams on their schedule. While I think that is certainly true about some of the teams, I doubt that playing BYU, TCU, Air Force, or Utah next year would be a cake walk for any team. Sure, the MWC is not as tough a conference as some of the bigger, well known conferences, but in recent history, I think we fare pretty well.

As for putting the NCAA Div. 2 team on our schedule, we did not plan that. Nevada (or was it USU) pulled out at the last minute and left an opening. As I recall, we tried to get a tougher, BSC team, but were unsuccessful. When Mendenhall said that scheduling down leads to a potential BCS invite, I don't think he was saying "hey, now I'm going to dumb down our schedule!", I think he was remarking that it was shameful that that is what is required for a chance to play the best teams.

Obviously, BYU was better than Hawaii last year, there's no question. but since we had a pair of losses (one being a fluke), we were out of contention.

Anyway...there you go.

Go Cougs. (Utahrds can kiss it)

Cougtastic wrote:

As for putting the NCAA Div. 2 team on our schedule, we did not plan that. Nevada (or was it USU) pulled out at the last minute and left an opening. As I recall, we tried to get a tougher, BSC team, but were unsuccessful. When Mendenhall said that scheduling down leads to a potential BCS invite, I don't think he was saying "hey, now I'm going to dumb down our schedule!", I think he was remarking that it was shameful that that is what is required for a chance to play the best teams.

BYU scheduling an I-AA school was more about maintaining a sixth home game than them being unable to find a I-A school. I believe there were several mediocre BCS conference teams (think Indiana-ish) that had holes in their schedules but were unwilling to travel out to Provo.

I actually do think that Coach Mendenhall wants to play at least one patsy a year for the near future, and I don't really mind if it translates into a BCS game. This year BYU may be hurt if UW and UCLA turn out to be pretenders, because having a I-AA school and a future I-AA school on the schedule sure isn't helping. If BYU ever wants to considered in the same breath as the national championship while still playing in the MWC, then they'd have to play and beat 4 BCS conference teams. But they have to make it to a BCS bowl first...

A lot of this discussion started with the addition of USU to our schedule and was magnified when UNR bailed. I would have liked to see a D I school replace UNR on the schedule...but it didn't happen as the options were pretty limited at that time. If UNR never bailed, I don't think there would have been much to discuss...We prove ourselves against 2 PAC 10 teams, correct the wrong that was done in Reno years back to a decent WAC team (albeit gimmicky offense) and try to get a win against USU with no serious injuries...and our schedule looks pretty decent on paper. Just win baby

I imagine that it was really tough on Holmoe making calls to other AD's. They probably went something like this:

"Hey man, I know we have never talked before but, I thought that I would propose a great, once-in-a-lifetime, opportunity to you! BYU football has an open date the first week of the season. And we would like to invite you come play us!

Here are some reasons you should jump at this chance:

Not only has our football team won every home game the last two years, our average margin of victory has been nearly 30+ points! If that weren't enough to entice you to come play us we have had 6 straight sellouts of more than 65,000 fans and play at an altitude of 4,500 feet.

I think that we can make this a really profitable one year agreement, because our non-conference schedule is totally packed for the next five years. So, I'm sorry to say that we won't even be able to make this a two game agreement.

We can even pay you about 300k like we did Eastern Illinois last year!

Whadyasay?"

-click-

No wonder we couldn't sign anyone from a decent conference. Holmoe's hands were totally tied. I place all the blame on this year's "dumbed down" schedule on Neveda. BYU didn't have many options to make the season tougher given the situation. Go Cougs!

Cougtastic wrote:

but since we had a pair of losses (one being a fluke), we were out of contention.

Just curious which one you consider to be the fluke. I would say the UCLA game. Tulsa plain outcoached us. The Pac-10 refs plained screwed us out of another win over a big-6 conference team.

I can't give the exact quote, but I got the impression from Bronco that he was fine with dumbing down the schedule a little. I would rather be playing Nevada this year, but that was not our doing.

The difference between our scheduling and the BCS scheduling is that we can't afford to lose a single game. Some BCS teams can lose 2 games and still be in contention for a BCS game and even a national championship.

I was not interested in season tickets this year due to the weak home schedule. UCLA and New Mexico are the only games I will drive 300 miles to see. I would like us to schedule 3 bcs teams a year instead of scheduling powder puffs in hope of playing 1 good team at the end of the season. I personally don't care if we play in a BCS game. I do care about having 6 or 7 games in the season against good competition.