The Coaches Poll is out and the brilliant coaches of America have BYU #10.
The AP has them at #11. With only one game played Wisconsin passed up BYU. That is just wrong.
Shows us how much ACTUAL regard the pollsters have for the Cougs. Ranking is political in that we are 6 - 0 and have won big. If we lose one, back to the end of the line.
Penn St went from 8th to 18th with o e loss. I just don’t like teams given rankings. Prove it over time.
Some truth to that…But keep in mind BYU is playing some real patsies here. How can you compare a BYU team that is playing mostly G5 team that rank in the bottom half of their conferences and a Houston team that frankly will implode when they run into Memphis or Cinn or any top tier G5 team out there. I think pollsters have been very generous to BYU. And while I think BYU IS a top 10 team, until we beat a BSU on the blue turf, BYU has not been tested.
Preach on brotha man, I am buying what you’re selling, fer true. I just think a lot of BYUs high ranking is political pressure for a 6-0 high scoring team. And if the Cougars lose a game, there will be great relief from lots of folks and the ranking will plummet to the bottom.
Rankings = politics = $$$
P5 = Power = SEC/Clemson/Top Dogs (Oklahoma Texas Ohio State i& USC)
CFP are for top Blue blood
Rankings is a joke. G5 will always be pushed around including BYU
Yes, it is a bit unfair. Utah got invited to the big dance but BYU, who is a true P5 in every sense gets left out. The only thing I would ask for at this point is that there is a playoff similar to basketball. A 8 team playoff that allowed a G5 team access to the playoffs.
Go Cougs.
Spot on. With all the injuries I’m thankful for the respite. With all the pieces in place BYU is a legit top 25 team and Wilson is playing so well that if he continues to do so-he might jump. Wouldn’t blame him if he did-he is playing on an elite level right now
Seriously. Clean wins against blah teams still impress the voters, and impress me as well. Could we be .500 in the SEC? Maybe this year, but DEFINITELY not year after year. Is it fun to watch BYU win again, even against bad teams? You bet. I would like to see Holmoe embrace the reality that we are and always should be a good to great G5 team but can never be a consistently good to great P5 team with the recruiting restrictions we have that the other P5 teams simply do not have. Look at UofU: UofU has a very good coach, $25m/year TV money, and zero HC or academic recruiting limitations. Yet they still are pretty much a middle of the road P5 team with the occasional very good year. I cannot understand why Holmoe thinks BYU could have a better result than the Utes. I wish we would embrace who we are and rejoin the MWC or join the American Conference instead of alternating between getting our heads kicked in by superior teams and then beating a bunch of lousy teams in November to–lower case yay–become bowl eligible. Because of our recruiting limitations, we don’t and will never have the depth to compete vs elite competition week after week–once a few guys got hurt, we would just get creamed.
Well, you wonder why top players play in Washington, Oregon, Boise, Blah Nebraska, Dustbowl Oklahoma and a lot of other ugly places to play ball. If we were in a P5 we would recruit many more elite LDS kids as well. Something about our BYU says we would be playing for conference titles in P5 conferences. And Utah has been at the top of the PAC 12 often.
Our recruiting limitations have nothing to do with whether we are P5 or not.
At all the schools you mention, football is deified. And for what it’s worth that part of Nebraska is beautiful.
Here is how I base my assessment that Utah, with a great coach, tons of cash, and no recruiting limitations, is just an average P5 team (15 minutes on ESPN.com):
2019: Final AP ranking: 16, 11-3, 1-2 vs ranked teams
played one ranked team all year before getting killed by the Ducks in the championship game then flat- out slaughtered by 5 loss, unranked Texas.
2018: Unranked, 9-5, 1-3 vs ranked teams
2017: Unranked, 7-6, 0-3 vs ranked teams
2016: Unranked, 9-4, 0-2 vs ranked teams
2015: final ranking 17, 10-3, 2-0 vs ranked teams
2014: final ranking 22, 9-4, 2-3 vs ranked teams
2013: unranked, 5-7, 1-2 vs ranked teams
2012: unranked, 5-7, 1-2 vs ranked teams
2011: unranked, 8-5, 0-1 vs ranked teams
In 9 years in the Pac12, UofU has only been ranked in the final top 25 three times, and never in the top 15
Overall record: 73-44
Average record: 8-5
Record vs ranked teams: 8-18
Record vs 4 best PAC12 programs (UO, UW, Stanford and USC): 8-17
Ranked only 3 of 9 years + 8-18 vs ranked teams + 8-17 vs conference elite=mediocre
For any Ute fans who may be reading this, I AM NOT saying BYU would have done better. It is however noteworthy to point out that vs ranked teams in that period BYU is 5-13 (.277) and the Utes are 8-18 (.307)–just about the same.
However we do lose great LDS players to P5 teams other than Utard. And at least part of the reason is to be on a bigger stage than BYU or Utah. There are other tangibles as well.
This discussion of Who BYU is nationally and what we should do, has me thinking.
BYU has shown over the past 40 years that when we have a great QB and some talent, BYU can beat a #1 ranked team once. Boise State also proved it could take out top 10 teams when they played them but to say that BYU could beat top talent consistently, we would have to recruit 4 and 5 star athletes on the order of a ND or OSU, Bama etc…
So we can win big once in a while…when we have a elite QB and talent at key positions. No doubt BYU has us dreaming big this year and it feels good but to crash back to earth. Wilson will be gone next year and so will our lofty visions of grandeur. And when we play the P5s and get injured in key areas, BYU will continue to lose to patsies as we have in the past.
The key to BYU being a topic in the national eye is to either schedule beatable P5 and enough good G5s, get our wins up there and get ranked and hope to someday join a P5 or as Tom says, run back to the MWC or AAC, and in that case, would ESPN continue sponsoring us because ESPN is the only reason why BYU is surviving indy at this point.
Another idea hit me about Wilson. I say he is gone after this season but just what if the Clemson QB wins the Heisman. Would Wilson stick around to add that award to his belt next year? just a thought.
Lawrence decided to come back when he would have been a high draft pick in a #1 team. Then, there are the John Walsh’s of the world that read their own press and believe the lying press that have no credibility in any sector of the country.
Why did Wilson choose BYU in the first place? There is something at BYU he recognizes and wants to be here. There is something Lawrence saw at Clemson and wanted to be there. And, it isn’t fame and fortune.
Whether Wilson stays or goes, except for this year, he’s been treated by the arm chair QBs of BYU pretty badly. There is a reason Wilson is here. Who knows, maybe he will take off for a mission 
I don’t think he would stick around for a shot at the Heisman. I also don’t think he would have a shot at it because BYU will not be good enough next year for any BYU QB to rack up huge stats against bad teams. I am NOT questioning Wilson’s play this year–he has been outstanding in every sense of the word. But we have to admit a lot of his success is due to BYU’s athletic dominance at almost every position in almost every game. If it seems certain that Wilson will be a 1st or 2nd round pick, and he wants to go get paid, I won’t criticize him. If BYU goes 11-0 or 10-1 or even 9-2 this year and Wilson is in the conversation, I just don’t see how next year could possibly go any better for him.
In the last several years, BYU football has been at best irrelevant nationally, and at worst a laughingstock to BYU haters and a source of great frustration to fans like me who want the games to be fun. When we were in the WAC and MWC, the haters still said “BYU doesn’t play anybody,” but that didn’t stop us from being a perennial top 25 team, sending tons of players to the NFL, and selling out every home game. And you know what? EVERY ONE OF US READING THIS who is old enough to remember LOVED watching those games and loved the feeling of our football program being relevant. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think we can beat top teams consistently, so why schedule 5-7 of them and torpedo the year before it begins? Hey–why doesn’t UofU schedule Weber State instead of Alabama? Because 1) UofU wants to win, and 2) UofU wants to be healthy. Our scheduling has created some great moments, but far more disappointment (and empty seats at LES) as our mediocrity has been exposed. There is no shame in scheduling teams at your own level, and maybe discretion is the better part of valor.
Maybe we should schedule weak teams every year… Na! That would be boring!
Done and done, There is a LOT of chatter about Holmoe scheduling to tone it down like BSU has and play 2 or so top tier teams, then fill the rest with average winable games.More later
I am not hearing anything about toning down the schedule. They want to put 5-7 P5 teams into the mix every year. The administration also wants to slowly build the depth of the program and there is zero support … for a number of reasons … to play in a non P5 conference. Their answer is to get better as a program and not drop down and lose the competition and the control they have over their schedule, income, TV exposure, game days, and the biggest one is TV game rights. Going into a G5 conference isn’t going to happen before the realignment happens.