It's just like that old, corny joke: "Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven ate nine."

Because: '07-'08-'09.

The 2006 Cougar Football team achieved something they hadn't in five years! They played awesome.

After 2005, people doubted the Beck-era-Cougars could accomplish anything resembling "awesome" under new Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall since, although they rose from the depths of four-win and five-win seasons, six-win mediocrity was all they managed to reward us fans with. BYU lost three of their first four games in 2005, lost to our rival at home, and lost their first winnable bowl game in almost a decade. At that point, for some, it was hard to see Bronco as the rescuer fans wanted him to be.

In 2006 we were inheriting a senior-laden team, although very few had the courage to be optimistic. 2005 was only "ok" with the same players as starters. What's a senior laden team worth when those seniors were apart of - in various extents - the same team that won only 20 games out of 47 in the last four years?!

Then BYU went 11-2 and fans become incredibly devoted to Bronco and some even developed intense man-crushes for the senior players. Fans enthusiastically celebrated that 11-2 season even though they all knew 11-2 was not the peak of these seniors potential. Absolutely not!

In fact, change the results of two field goal kicks and that team enjoys an undefeated season. Imagine that undefeated season then you can imagine the 2006 Cougars receiving the best reward for a great season that the current system has to offer to teams like BYU - the invite to the fifth big money New Years day Bowl game.

With a miss and a make, BYU wouldn't have left the September '06 schedule with the record of 2-2 and those seniors wouldn't have lost their last chance to attain that ultimate reward, they would only have had to wait out the decision of BYU or BSU in the Fiesta.

The 2006 season was special. Two games short of really special though, so Bronco was ready to fix that.

However, when '06 graduated, in effect, so did what they worked to achieve.

No one voted the reloading '07 Cougars anywhere near the poll position of 16th in the nation. The '07 Cougars started the season in the tail-end of the "Others receiving votes:" category and were only two better than the '07 Fighting Irish.

As far as every layman outside of the Cougar faithful was concerned, and even some of those inside the Cougar faithful, the 2006 BYU Cougars were labeled a one-hit wonder. If anyone was willing to predict, the prediction was that it would take another set of years to relive such a successful season in Provo.

Nevertheless, thanks to a fiercely determined Coach in Mendenhall, the 2007 Cougars appeared to decide there would be no such thing as one-hit wonders in the Cougar legacy under Bronco. It appeared that, to Bronco, BYU was a sturdy foundation fraught with a tradition of winning and that it was his job to keep it that way. Accepting nothing less than a repeat of last season's success, the 2007 Cougars honored the Beck-era by committing to return to that same peak strenuously hiked by Beck et al. who went before.

The Sophomore-era Cougars have a shot now to not only return to that same peak of accomplishment set by Bronco's 11-2 senior-laden team, but to continue onward up the mountain and plant the flag bearing the Cougar blue-oval and white Y logo on an even higher peak.

A BCS bowl game.

After that, if you listen to Bronco, the next step is a second National Championship.

Thanks to an era of sophomore leaders, our best Cougar Football teams are on the horizon.

This '07 team won't just play awesome and graduate; they have an opportunity unlike one we haven't seen at BYU in decades.

Seven + eight + nine will be crucial to achieve both of Bronco's yet unrealized goals of a BCS berth and a second National Championship.

Seven is not yet complete, and BYU must take advantage of the springboard opportunity this 2007 bowl game is.

With a convincing victory over UCLA, 10-game winning streak, and a top-20 ranking the BYU Cougar squad will end a successful 2007 unlike the 2006 Cougars. BYU will be returning in 2008 with a team that should not have enough losses to graduation to fall too far in the National rankings when the preseason polls are figured.

Unlike the '06 Cougars, we will have an opportunity to return virtually the same team and if granted a pre-season ranking going into '08, a BCS bowl game and payout is ours to lose.

Putting blue-colored goggles on, we can suppose that if we got a BCS berth in '08 it would likely mean BYU had an undefeated 2008 season and is on a 22-game winning streak. Then if BYU defeats their BCS opponent in that bowl game, BYU will enter the 2009 season on a 23-game winning streak and best of all with senior leaders who have been heading the wave of Cougar victories for two straight seasons.

A practically unbeaten senior squad would carry our rise in the preseason polls to a potential top-10 preseason ranking! Thus giving BYU an opportunity so perfectly-plausible if followed by a second straight 12-0 season, it could land the 2009 Cougars in the drivers seat to a BCS National Championship invite!

With contests against Pac-10's Washington and UCLA over the next two years, and one in '09 against a hopefully improved Florida State on the road, BYU should have the degree of difficulty in the schedule warranting the Cougars a look. We should have an extremely home-friendly thus winnable conference schedule in '09 and with that a potential win streak of 35 games! Seriously, who could deny BYU one of the top two spots in the polls after a 35-game win streak?

If BYU is merely one of many undefeated in '09 or has even one-loss over the next two seasons, their chances of getting more than just two BCS game berths in a row will be extremely low.

The odds are not stacked in BYU's favor. But, their fate does rest in their hands.

Too bad perfection is required for several years before a team like BYU gets to be in the National Championship conversation. But, if we were ever going to have two straight undefeated seasons, this 10-2 sophomore led Cougar squad is the best hope we have had in a long while.

Too bad the Beck-era Cougars didn't get to take their incredibly effective football squad and "rinse and repeat" like these Sophomore-era Cougars are getting to do.

The next two seasons are going to be exciting!

We may end up missing a National Championship opportunity in 2009 and will have to reload again. But as long as reloading in 2010 includes Bronco Mendenhall returning for his sixth season as head coach, I wouldn't expect the next great BYU team to be too far down the road.

Aaron King is a correspondent of the Daily Herald. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it