Beware, the Feelers are now out. Don't cave in

Football
41

I still haven’t been able to track down recruiting data from farther back. I have a suspicion it doesn’t exist. But from what I can see, BYU did not reel in many highly rated players throughout our history. My guess is we would get in one guy that would be rated around 4 stars every 10 years? I’m not sure because I don’t have a feel for it.

Danny Ainge was obviously a highly recruited freak, but who else did we get that was highly rated at the same time? Because as I’m looking back through the last 15 years or so, we basically got a bunch of 1, 2 or 3 star players. For instance, Jimmer was a 3 star.

But in the last few years, We’ve gotten 8: Kolby lee, Yoeli, Connor Harding, Gavin Baxter, TJ, Dastrup, Erik Mika, Nick Emery. Going from almost never to 8 all around the same time…That’s pretty good. Now you can fairly criticize that we’ve underacheived with that talent but I do believe we’ve gotten talent.

I would agree that the small gym thing is a problem. At the same time, our games are accessible on ESPN or elsewhere and it’s easier to watch. That was far superior to the mountain. Now if the MWC could swing a deal with ESPN then I’m much more accepting of that argument.

Fighting the Zags for the MWC on ESPN is the best outcome that’s likely. Our recruiting might jump even more.

And if someone has recruiting data somewhere, that would be nice.

42

Floyd,

Do you feel that everything I said was off base, or it there one or two things in particular that are off base? (Honest question respectfully asked).

Except for the personal opinions I state, the factual parts were on the most part, cut and paste from the Desert News, i.e, the probable teams in the Mountain Division and the probable teams in the West Division, and the reasons for joining the MWC, if indeed we do.

My opinion of the facts above, may be off base, but they are my opinions due to the fact that the ongoing talks, one in New York with the group of 10 from the MWC, our AD was prssent.
Talks are ongoing. Interest is high. Our decision making seems to be very private while those of the Zags and the MWC seem to be much more open. We neither agree, or disagree that we are interested in the move. We have had much opportunity to disagree, but to me, our silence speaks volumes.

43

dew, (pal),

By the end of this April, (7 weeks ), we will see if you, and (quote: I am sure other guys see that way to), still feel that BYU was not at least considering joining the MWC. This is what the post is about. The rest was just what would need to be done with scheduling if indeed we did join in time for this season’s game schedule. By the end of this April, it may or may not be too late for schedule to change in order to play for the conference this season, but instead, possibly plan for the following season. Read more carefully what was said about McNeese State,and UMASS. I think that you read the posting wrong in this area.

Ron

44

Dew,

I really like and appreciate this posting of yours, (dew is my initials to David Watts ). Thank you for the update. I did suspect this to be true but went fishing to make sure. Thanks for taking the bite. (smile).

I do agree with all that you say in this post, however, since Zaga, is the main catch for basketball, the MWC does not need us for that team, and if they do invite us, under their terms, not ours, because of (Zaga basketball and Boise State Football), they would only take us if we were 100% in for all sports. This is my opinion which may or may not be accurte. Just opinion…

45

fish,

I agree that Craig Thompson lied to us about the BYUtv package and the rights to air to cougar nation. There is no disagreement here at all, but i fail to see the connection between the said lie and what the post is about. I don’t disagree with you. I am just confused over the point you are making.

Ron

46

Ron is right. We will never, “And the Rock means Never!” get into the Pac 12 for the reasons Ron mentions here.

47

Ron,
I told you that you were off base on certain things, then went on to explain what points you were off base on.
Things like:

  1. Paying for a high priced HC will help us achieve the P5 status we want (who ever heard of Mike Holgren, Andy Reid, Bill Bilichek, etc before they became Head Coaches in the NFL?) all of them were assistant coaches under Lavell.

  2. We don’t recruit the 4 and 5 star players. (See current crop of players coming in, we have several 4 star recruits)

  3. Going back to the MWC is not the way to obtain our goal of P5. Well playing in the WCC has actually HURT our basketball program. If we made the move in basketball our RPI would automatically be raised because the teams in the MWC as a whole is a lot better than those in the WCC.

As for Football, it has been discussed by Bronco Mendenhall, Tom Holmoe and others that being Independent is not sustainable. And currently “NO P5 Conference” is looking to expand until 2025 or so what do we do? We have a nice contract with ESPN. But have you noticed that ESPN is cutting costs lately? As well as the fact that the BYU games are not getting as good of Nielson Ratings as they once were.

Just because some sports writer says something is so, does not make it. I have heard NOTHING about BYU being forced to come back to MWC in football. I have heard that Gonzaga has talked about moving to the MWC (Currently the league has 11 basketball teams, Hawaii does football only) and would like BYU to come with them. Tom Holmoe has said he has NOT been in contact with the league, nor have there been any discussions about going back to the league.

48

Floyd,

Thank you for your reply. You are among my favorites on this site and I aways value your open minded insights even when they do not agree with mind.

I would like to respond, (respectfully), to some of your comments:

( We don’t recruit the 4 and 5 star players. (See current crop of players coming in, we have several 4 star recruits)
Floyd, I think if you check the records, this recruiting cast is the lowest we have had in decades.

(Going back to the MWC is not the way to obtain our goal of P5). I totally agree. And, I am not advocating that we go back to the MWC. I am acknowledging that there is serious talk about it.

(We have a nice contract with ESPN. But have you noticed that ESPN is cutting costs lately? As well as the fact that the BYU games are not getting as good of Nielson Ratings as they once were.) Again, I totally agree with you. And might add, that our contract with ESPN that was fro $10,000 per year and about to expire, was made when we were doing great and had great TV ratings and things were looking up for us, which the opposite is now true, and I don’t expect ESPN to offer us as good of anew contract as the one that is ending.

( I have heard NOTHING about BYU being forced to come back to MWC in football.) Again, I agree. On the contrary, with the Zogs, being the big dog in Basketball, now being wooed into the MWC, and with Boise State, being the new Big Dog in Football, if we were to get into the MWC, it would be on the terms of the MWC and not on our terms as we no longer have the clout with the MWC that we once had, so No, I totally agree with you Floyd, no body is forcing us to join the MWC. If anything, it would be the other way around.

(Tom Holmoe has said he has NOT been in contact with the league, nor have there been any discussions about going back to the league). Floyd, the Desert News has a totally different story to tell on this issue. According to the Desert News, when the group of 10 from the MWC was at their New York Meeting Recently, regarding the realignment of the conference, Tom (AD), was at that meeting in hopes of talking to them during the breaks.

Floyd, I really don’t think that we disagree on most things, and on the full things that we do disagree on, I believe the difference is in the articles that each of us read from the different sources.

Thanks again. I always enjoy your comments.

Ron

49

That comment was made about the “last Class” of recruits. Remember Ron, many recruits goes on missions before coming to BYU. Some of the incoming players are 4 star recruits:

50

YOU: I am acknowledging that there is serious talk about it.

ME: the Only “talking” being done is by Sports Media… NOT BYU Administration. The only thing that may be considered to go back to MWC is for Basketball and the other sports (Baseball, Volleyball, etc). Not football, for two reasons. a) MWC has twelve teams, bringing BYU back would be the uneven numbered team b) Scheduling problems.

YOU: I don’t expect ESPN to offer us as good of anew contract as the one that is ending.
ME: I do not expect ESPN is going to give ANY conference a good contract as they were giving out before. With the number of sports TV programs, it is not feasible to spend large amount of money on conference games.

YOU:On the contrary, with the Zogs, being the big dog in Basketball, now being wooed into the MWC, and with Boise State, being the new Big Dog in Football, if we were to get into the MWC, it would be on the terms of the MWC and not on our terms as we no longer have the clout with the MWC that we once had, so No, I totally agree with you Floyd, no body is forcing us to join the MWC. If anything, it would be the other way around.

ME: BSU is not the big dog in football anymore, USU, Nevada and other teams have come up to par with BSU in football. The thing that you forget is the draw BYU has in every western state. Right now, we are in a down year, which every team goes through. Just five years or so ago, Alabama was not good.

If we did go back to MWC, at least after the first loss we still would have something to play for (Conference Championship).

As you said before, maybe having clout is what caused us bad feelings before.

51

Here are some comments I found in DesertNews about MWC
"According to Zeigler, “Thompson said BYU was not among the other schools that have contacted him about expansion, but several sources indicated that BYU — which went independent in football in 2011 and plays in the WCC in most other sports — would consider a return to the Mountain West at least in basketball if Gonzaga joins.”

I can find no reference by Harmon that says Tom was in NYC trying with the MWC. Can you please site your source of information?

52

My guess, our move depends on the Zags. No sense in tipping our hand to the public. Though I suppose giving a nod yes or no to the Zags might make sense.

The football question is the key. I don’t know the MWC’s mind on this. My guess is they would settle for a special relationship where we play 4-6 guaranteed games. Similar to ND and the ACC. I think they’ll play the long game if need be because they’ll bet we end up a full member sooner or later. But this just gives them a better chance it’s with them and not the AAC.

If I’m Tom, I’d be pretty tight-lipped. I don’t have a strong opinion either way because the big decisions will happen in 5 or 6 years and where we go right now or not is secondary to just winning some games.

As to the future conference realignment, I think there are political, financial, and cultural factors that make it very unlikely the PAC12 asks us to join. They already have the Utah Market, adding BYU just weakens the position of one of their members, (Utah) and BYU has shown no interest in becoming the kind of university that the PAC12 wants: a grad program heavily research grant oriented institution. BYU’s focus is on teaching and undergraduate research more than anything else. That’s a sticky issue. Plus there is the honor code thing and they are never going to like that and it seems very unlikely we’ll change it. The big 12 has similar issues but they’re much smaller. We could pull that off and they happen to be in a much weaker position than the Pac12 because none of the Pac 12 teams are going to get poached. The big12 just looks like a target to the three other conferences and the prize is Texas and Oklahoma. If they lose either of those teams to the SEC or the BIG 10 they could very well be done as a P5 football conference. Adding BYU doesn’t necessarily help them keep those 2 teams. It depends on the money.

Look, I see the potential to cobble together a country-wide conference of teams who might be a little disaffected. A Boise st for instance because they are only really good at one thing and so no one wants them. perhaps if you went to a couple big name schools and said hey, you create a ton of revenue and you should keep more of that revenue instead of losing it to the likes of say Pepperdine. I would poach some top-notch basketball-only schools to create a dominant basketball conference and then put together a solid football conference with fewer members but better names. You need a bottom tier: poach the service academies and put them in a single conference. Teams like BYU, ND, Texas (steal them by giving them a better money deal), You be the aggressor instead of letting other conferences attack you.

That’s probably a pipe dream and we’re probably going back to the MWC no matter what, one way or another.

53

Floyd,

I still respect you and your opinions. I was wrong in thinking that our views were more alike than they are different. Keep up the good posting. I enjoy you and what you have to say, even when we are not on the same page.

Ron

54

Byu is in a pickle because Gonzaga is all but signed on with the Mountain West conference. It means Byu has no leverage to bargain with

55

Depends on what we’re looking for here. If we’re just interested in parking basketball in the MWC then I don’t think we’ll have a problem. We travel well and the MWC would love to have our fans back in the fold when they try to negotiate their next TV deal, which we would be able to influence. Besides our bargaining chip is football, which is probably more valuable to them than gonzaga basketball just for being football and having an enormous amount of fans.

Why are you so confident the Zags are gone? It seems like the logical move for them, just curious?

56

I am not ao sure GU is gone. My bet is that they stay but get a bigger piece of the pie like they deserve!