mormonrasta wrote:

Consider that every Pac-10 team plays 9 conference games and most play at least one VERY good nonconference game. No Pac-10 team has finished the season with less than 2 losses since they went to this kind of schedule.

Your sample size of two years is a bit small.

I haven't even read the article yet but just the thought of someone dissing the 1996 team gets me all fired up! That was a great team. Too bad they let that one game get away from them at Washington. But they still set the NCAA record for victories in a season with 14. I would suspect, giving the law of averages, that even the vaunted BCS teams and nat'l champion winners would likely lose a game if they were pushing their schedules to 15 games. I love watching that team, they were so solid all around. James Dye was a playmaker in every sense of the word. Keep in mind, their first game in the Kickoff Classic (or was it the Pigskin Classic?) was against Texas A&M which was the pre-season #1 for that year. Technically speaking, BYU has knocked off two #1's in their history. BYU is doing the best with what they have to work with. Given the same tools and resources, they would compete fine in "BCS Land". No matter how you dice it, we did squash Oregon by 30 points, that deserves some level of respect.

Slugger wrote:

I haven't even read the article yet but just the thought of someone dissing the 1996 team gets me all fired up! That was a great team. Too bad they let that one game get away from them at Washington. But they still set the NCAA record for victories in a season with 14. I would suspect, giving the law of averages, that even the vaunted BCS teams and nat'l champion winners would likely lose a game if they were pushing their schedules to 15 games. I love watching that team, they were so solid all around. James Dye was a playmaker in every sense of the word. Keep in mind, their first game in the Kickoff Classic (or was it the Pigskin Classic?) was against Texas A&M which was the pre-season #1 for that year. Technically speaking, BYU has knocked off two #1's in their history. BYU is doing the best with what they have to work with. Given the same tools and resources, they would compete fine in "BCS Land". No matter how you dice it, we did squash Oregon by 30 points, that deserves some level of respect.

I'm one that thinks that the 1996 team was BYU's best team ever, but just one point of order--A&M was ranked #14 preseason, which is why BYU barely cracked the top 25 after their win in the Pigskin Classic.

Back to the article, I don't have as many problems with it as many here do. On the '96 team, though the team beat some big name competition, it still lost to #16 Washington and struggled in the Cotton Bowl against #14 Kansas State. Despite being ranked #5, I think the team would have struggled against Florida (#1), Ohio State (#2), Florida State (#3), Arizona State (#4), and Nebraska (#6). They weren't especially overrated though as the writer suggests (I'd rank them at #6 behind Nebraska). Regarding the 2001 team, I wouldn't put the 2001 team in the top 5 of BYU's all-time teams (maybe not even the top 10, but I'd have to think about it).

As far as the hypothetical of putting BYU in a BCS conference, I'd agree that in any given year, if you plucked BYU from the MWC and put them in the Pac 10 or Big XII for that year, they'd finish in the 3-4 range. But as people have dicussed, that whole concept it oversimplified because if BYU were a member of a BCS conference, BYU would recruit much better and hence be able to challenge for the conference championship within a few years.

Mingjai wrote:

Slugger wrote:

I haven't even read the article yet but just the thought of someone dissing the 1996 team gets me all fired up! That was a great team. Too bad they let that one game get away from them at Washington. But they still set the NCAA record for victories in a season with 14. I would suspect, giving the law of averages, that even the vaunted BCS teams and nat'l champion winners would likely lose a game if they were pushing their schedules to 15 games. I love watching that team, they were so solid all around. James Dye was a playmaker in every sense of the word. Keep in mind, their first game in the Kickoff Classic (or was it the Pigskin Classic?) was against Texas A&M which was the pre-season #1 for that year. Technically speaking, BYU has knocked off two #1's in their history. BYU is doing the best with what they have to work with. Given the same tools and resources, they would compete fine in "BCS Land". No matter how you dice it, we did squash Oregon by 30 points, that deserves some level of respect.

I'm one that thinks that the 1996 team was BYU's best team ever, but just one point of order--A&M was ranked #14 preseason, which is why BYU barely cracked the top 25 after their win in the Pigskin Classic.

Back to the article, I don't have as many problems with it as many here do. On the '96 team, though the team beat some big name competition, it still lost to #16 Washington and struggled in the Cotton Bowl against #14 Kansas State. Despite being ranked #5, I think the team would have struggled against Florida (#1), Ohio State (#2), Florida State (#3), Arizona State (#4), and Nebraska (#6). They weren't especially overrated though as the writer suggests (I'd rank them at #6 behind Nebraska). Regarding the 2001 team, I wouldn't put the 2001 team in the top 5 of BYU's all-time teams (maybe not even the top 10, but I'd have to think about it).

As far as the hypothetical of putting BYU in a BCS conference, I'd agree that in any given year, if you plucked BYU from the MWC and put them in the Pac 10 or Big XII for that year, they'd finish in the 3-4 range. But as people have dicussed, that whole concept it oversimplified because if BYU were a member of a BCS conference, BYU would recruit much better and hence be able to challenge for the conference championship within a few years.

I'd have to add National Championship contender almost every year as well.

Mingjai wrote:

Back to the article, I don't have as many problems with it as many here do. On the '96 team, though the team beat some big name competition, it still lost to #16 Washington and struggled in the Cotton Bowl against #14 Kansas State. Despite being ranked #5, I think the team would have struggled against Florida (#1), Ohio State (#2), Florida State (#3), Arizona State (#4), and Nebraska (#6). They weren't especially overrated though as the writer suggests (I'd rank them at #6 behind Nebraska). Regarding the 2001 team, I wouldn't put the 2001 team in the top 5 of BYU's all-time teams (maybe not even the top 10, but I'd have to think about it).

True, they barely got past KSU, but they also had to beat the SEC refs who were determined to put upstart BYU in their proper place. I have never seen such a rediculously biased reffing job against BYU as in that game.

I don't remember the specifics, but I still recall a couple of awfully officiated pass interference situations.

Great teams don't necessarily demolish their opposition every game. Just look at the national champions last year, or the patriots during the regular season last year. There have been many great teams that had to make it through a tight spot here and there. The bottom line is always wins and losses.