Defection didn't help BYU
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
When we last left Brigham Young University football — well, actually BYU left us — the Cougars were supposed to be on the way to greener pastures.
There would be no stopping them once they were free of the Western Athletic Conference. To hear BYU tell it, breaking away from the WAC was akin to ridding itself of a Wasatch-sized millstone.
No longer, the Cougars proclaimed, would they be held back by the WAC. No more would their national championship hopes be dragged down by the weakness of the WAC and the teams in it.
It was a snub from the forerunner of the Bowl Championship Series, the then-Bowl Alliance, in 1996 that helped push BYU toward the door. Denied a place in the national title hunt despite a 13-1 record, BYU was consigned to the Cotton Bowl, where it was forced to settle for and share a $2 million payout instead of an $8.5 million Fiesta Bowl berth in the Alliance.
So it is more than a little ironic that now, more than three years after the eventual breakup, BYU is in danger of being excluded from the BCS despite a 12-0 record.
Here the Cougars are entering the regular season finale Saturday against Hawai'i undefeated, untied and, barring a final week miracle, again uninvited to the big party.
That's a shame because the Cougars deserve better. But while the blame belongs to the monopoly that is the BCS, the six conferences that control it and BYU's schedule, the Mountain West Conference has certainly proved to been no more of an advantage than the WAC.
The Mountain West, with weak strength of schedule numbers, has been just as much as a hurdle as the WAC ever was. Consider that by one measure yesterday, BYU's strength of schedule was 105th and Hawai'i's was 87th. Or that the Mountain West has only three teams in the top 60 of the BCS (including BYU), one less than the WAC.
Instead of San Jose State, 98th in the BCS power ratings, the Cougars still have Wyoming, which is 101st. Rather than 58th Hawai'i, there is still 90th San Diego State.
The same moaning and groaning BYU fans did about WAC commissioner Karl Benson being unable to deal them into the Alliance is now heard about Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson being unable to deliver them to the BCS.
It is regrettable BYU probably won't get the shot at a national title and the marquee bowl showcase it deserves. But this time the Cougars won't have the WAC to blame.
