Why BYU Will Not Make The National Title Game

BYU's football profile took a big leap on Saturday after they won a hard fought game against Oklahoma in Arlington, Texas. Even with Sam Bradford's injury, the hard nosed defensive style that BYU initiated against the powerhouse Oklahoma offense from a year ago, made a lot of people take notice. Having an ESPN audience in prime time also surely helped.

It's only one game into the season, and BYU's schedule is very difficult, with games against Florida State, Utah and TCU remaining. However, all of those games are at home, and though a big obstacle, BYU may find themselves facing one that they can't overcome.

Currently BYU are at the front of the college football spotlight, but after this week they will fall off the college football fan radar, partly because of a contract dispute. BYU plays at Tulane on Saturday, and that game is on ESPN2, and although the lineup is crowded and it's a lower tiered game, the attention will still help the program.

Then, the next week is the other marquee non-conference game with Florida State, a perfect game for ABC or ESPN or even Fox Sports to show, and a game BYU need people to see in order to help them build title momentum.

Instead, the game is scheduled to be shown on the Versus network, and that is a problem for BYU. Since the first of September, the Versus network has been off Directv because of a rate dispute, and therefore a big avenue to show the game is currently unavailable.

In terms of households, the percentage of potential viewers lost may not be large, since Versus is on most cable systems, including Comcast, the company that owns Versus. The bigger loss will be as sports bars across the country.

Many sports bars have Directv set up, and none of them will be showing Florida St-BYU that night. Sports bars don't factor into television ratings, but fans take notice and pay attention when out on a Saturday night and if BYU isn't on, they won't seem as important.

Perception plays a big factor in the national title race. Last year, Oklahoma and Florida were viewed as more dominant teams than Utah, mostly because more voters had seen those teams play. Versus isn't as big of an avenue as an ESPN2 would be, but at least until recently most households and bars showed the channel.

BYU have two major games against Florida State and TCU, that could build talk of a title challenge, which potential audiences will, as a result, be missing. The rest of BYU's games are on the Mountain and CBS College Sports, which don't attract a lot of football fans either. At least they will be on at the bar.

Exposure is the Mountain West's and BYU's problem. The Big 12 have huge prime time games every week (especially last year) and the SEC have two big television contracts with ESPN and CBS.

Ohio State and USC are traditional schools that are always on television. Florida State and Miami were the powerhouses earlier in the decade and from those two conferences and four teams I listed, you have every BCS national championship game team this decade.

I can base my assumptions on recent history to provide a scenario of what will happen to BYU if they are undefeated at the end of the season. They will probably work their way up to around second or third.

Then, the SEC and Big 12 title games are the next week. One of the winners of those games will jump BYU and enter the title game, because voters saw the dominant performance of Florida for example, while few of them will see BYU beat Utah the week before.

BYU need to get as high up the rankings, as soon as possible, for the longer it takes them, the more opportunity a team above them can lose a game and remain ahead. The best way to move quickly up the charts is to beat Tulane of course, and then dominate Florida State in front of as many eyes as possible.

BYU and the Mountain West conference need to pressure Versus to work out a deal with Directv. If no deal is struck by game time, college football fans in bars across the country will have a golden opportunity to focus on a prime time Big 12 showdown between Texas Tech and Texas. The Big 12 team will also gladly fill an undefeated BYU's spot in the BCS title game. It may not be fair, but it is reality.

(Added Monday Night) - Florida State losing to Miami makes the road for BYU even more difficult.