Somehow college football intersects in our everyday American life. For some of us more than others.
I met a native Alabaman overseas in 2012 who stated adamantly that he hated football, because more or less, the people of his home state were so blindly enraptured with the college football scene that many of them knew about or cared about little else. Yes, I admit, that could be a detractor in life. A turn-off. Mono-focus, or myopia on such a game like a college sport could lead to ignoring much more important matters. Got it.
Yes, if we know more about college football teams and players than other more significant things in life, then that would be a problem. Perhaps that is one of mine! Perhaps it has taken too much of my waking hours. Nevertheless, I do claim to know about other things pretty well. However, my knowledge about certain college football history and trivia is something that I will not easily dismiss, disregard, or ignore. It's programmed into me, for the good or bad. And despite the perhaps accurate statement of that retired Army Alabaman who has his dream home in Poland, I respectfully beg to differ. College football and its passions and stories do not inhibit me, or limit my successes in other fields. But I can understand the argument against my line of reasoning...
I wrote on a couple blogs from 2006 to 2009, more or less; I wrote a number of somewhat passionate stories about college football. My blog on Foxpsorts "papaclinchsaints'it" was dedicated more to Brigham Young University, while "edclinchs'it" (or something to that effect) was more about Indiana University. Both were eventually altered and wiped out on the Foxsports.com site; hopefully they may be found someday in the recesses of the Internet, perhaps stored serendipitously in Ashburn, Virginia, or some such covert storage vault deep in the bowels of our planet. I might be able to review my old ramblings on such matters. Who knows? They say that stuff posted is forever, but I have my doubts.
For now I have this. I hope it sticks around. Sooner or Later. I still have a bit of my own brain and memory.
So, what about BYU football? Why does it matter to the greater college football world? Why does it matter to me and a few others?
30 years ago this year the college football world changed. In 1984, a few bigger football conferences were upset that a "small" college team could win the national championship. And ever since, things have continually been in motion to marginalize the chances of it happening again. A couple of other teams since the BYU Cougars have had their chances to rock the cradle of the giants, but things normally did not go the right way, much to the relief of the power conferences, where the investment and money and power and interest make the world go round. For them. They like their cookies, and they want most of the chocolate chips. Animal crackers are okay to share with the little guys. Does this inform us about other aspects of life?
Who are the big tier schools? The Southeastern Conference. The Big 10. The Atlantic Coast Conference. The Pacific Coast Conference. Add one or two others (like the former Big East) and the Big 12, and these are the bigger haves versus the slightly more numerous smaller school have-nots, conferences of smaller orders. But the have-nots have at times successfully pushed and prodded to get the glory and lime light. BYU has been one. Boise State has been another. At times Fresno State threatened the status quo of the Automatic Qualifiers (AQ) teams, and a few others like Texas Christian have come close a few times. But the top conferences garner the biggest contracts, earning the highest paying rewards, as they are known in relation to the Bowl Championship Series, the big bowls that reward the teams and their accompanying educational programs a lot more hype and money. And yes, money. Hence, the "haves".
Not to forget Our Lady of Notre Dame, which stands somewhat alone in its status as an independent team in football, yet is always kept as a "major", the lone independent AQ. (Big boy). The Fighting Irish have their own television and other money contracts, have maintained their big tier status despite going it alone. They are a staple of television and college football lore. Kind of holy, as it were.
So, how about these upstart Mormons? Not as holy as thou?
BYU has entered this status of independence, a la Notre Dame, since 2010, disassociating itself from its former conferences, yet still not recognized in the same league as Notre Dame football. (It has exceeded them in a few other intercollegiate sports, but football is the cash cow, and somewhat sacred.)
We could argue that it should happen. It could. The original apple cart toppler may topple the system again. It has been thirty years, as stated before. BYU wants to prove it belongs in the same sentence, or at least paragraph, as Notre Dame. And I think it will happen.
The Cougars. Provo, Utah. Not Army at West Point, not Navy in Annapolis, not Air Force in Colorado Springs. These are service academies with their own glory, traditions and histories, but they are not what BYU is in the 21st century. BYU is poised to be a big boy.
BYU, I and others maintain, will make its way among the Automatic Qualifiers. We think. It is a long and sometimes arduous uphill battle, but it is an eventuality.
How did this happen? Or why will it happen?
College football got going in the 19th century with Rutgers in New Jersey. By the 1930s there were some particularly strong programs, some of which had established their long standing traditions of prominence until today, 2014. Michigan. Oklahoma. Alabama. Wisconsin. Ohio State. Penn State. Okay, maybe Penn St. was not a huge deal before World War II, but neither was Florida State as it has been now since the 1980s. Some programs have become institutionally and thus cultually strong in the last 30 years. Boise State can be included in the conversation now, as TCU. The Mountain West Conference has been the outlier little conference pushing the envelope. And BYU left them.
Brigham Young football began in 1922. It did not win much or enough to get on the major football map until Lavell Edwards coached them to headlines in the 1970s. The 1980s got better, a subsequent National Championship in '84 and a Heisman winner in 1990. His last 10 years were not remarkable by any means, but 1996 again showed that the Cougars from Provo could potentially upset the apple cart.
Short lived successor 1st year coach Gary Crowton threw a scare into the system in 2001, before being massacred in the last game by Hawai'i in the islands (gratefully for the BCS teams) in that crazy year. Of course, the events and detritus, as it were, of September 2001 are not to be forgotten, but believe it or not, the delay of college football games due to the September 11 attacks actually effected, perhaps to its grave end of season collapse against the aforementioned Rainbow Warriors, the BYU football Cougars. I have written about that before and maybe will again sometime, especially if asked. (Note to self: sometimes I need to write things out simply to make sure I understand what I am feeling or talking about). Get it documented. 9/11/01 hurt the Cougar football team, perhaps worse than most other programs.
Current and 10 year tenured coach Bronco Mendenhall has done an adequate job, leading the team to its share of success. But they have come up short in the Big Bowl department.
Hopes are still there. It could happen. It could happen this year. Or, as in promising seasons past, they may lose their share of games and go to a minor bowl, as they are want to do.
But BYU is playing with a historical chip on its shoulder. It wants to prove that it belongs.
And it does. It will. The talent and luck will come together one of these seasons.
It could be this one.
More of how and when and who. But just a reminder about the first victim necessary: the Huskies up north of NYC. See you in a week or so.
Blog on. EMC.
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