It's Decision Time for BYU

BYU on the outside looking in?

The Board of Trustees and the administration at Brigham Young University have a decision to make.

Are they willing to to do what it takes to play with the big boys or not? Being the big fish in the little pond will no longer suffice – or work for that matter.

With arch rival Utah leaping to the PAC-10, the balance of power has stunningly changed. BYU finds itself face down in the mud after a sucker punch from a in-state little brother, who stands over them gloating.

The program with the larger fan base, better facilities, stronger national reputation, football national championship and Heisman trophy to its credit, just witnessed the Utes rocket past them on Thursday to grab the spotlight and cash. The world has inexplicably turned upside down for Cougar Nation.

Who would have ever imagined through the years of Gifford Nielsen, Marc Wilson, Jim McMahon, Steve Young, Robbie Bosco, Ty Detmer, Steve Sarkesian, etc, etc, that it would be the Utes getting the big pay day ahead of BYU. Prior to 2003 Utah hadn’t won an outright conference football title in over 50 years. For three decades the Utes along with rest of the conference’s programs gravy-trained off of BYU’s athletic accomplishments and national brand.

As the conference big dog, BYU has always tried to play it nice, not wanting to rock the boat or come across as overplaying its hand. Well, those days are officially over. What we have learned from the last two weeks is that it’s every school for itself.

So BYU, are you going to get off the canvas? Or are you going to just turn the other cheek and then slither away into athletic anonymity to become the religious version of Harvard or Yale? Or perhaps the Provo version of BYU-Idaho?

If your going to get back in the fight, the same old line of reasoning won’t get it done. You’ll need to call in the cavalry, you’ll need to take the bull by the (long) horns, you’ll need to think outside of the proverbial box.

No more mister nice guy.

Here are some thoughts to get you started…

#1. Do what it takes to get yourself into the Big XII.

Despite what Big XII Commissioner Dan Bebee has said, at the end of the day the conference schools are not going to walk away from the revenue generated by a championship game. Also consider that Jerry Jones, who has a contract with the league to play its championship games in the new Cowboys Stadium, is not going to just let the Big XII walk away from its commitment. And don’t think for a moment that the NCCA is going to allow the Big XII to play a championship game with just 10 teams. It just forced the Big Ten and PAC-10 to go to 12 teams to have a championship game.

The Big XII will also be forced to add schools to insure that it consistently has enough teams that qualify for all of its bowl tie-ins. The Big XII has contracts with nine different bowls including the Fiesta (or BCS title game), Holiday, Cotton, Insight, Alamo, Texas, Pinstripe,  EagleBank and the Dallas Bowl Classic. If they want to keep those bowls in place they will have to add teams to the league that put butts in seats and draw eyeballs for TV. If they don’t some, if not most, of those bowls will  look around for a better partner like an expanded PAC-10 or Big Ten.

BYU has always had a friend in ESPN, who by the way now owns the TV rights to both the BCS and the Big XII championship game. ESPN has consistently worked to get BYU on its air because the Cougars deliver strong ratings for the network. BYU needs to work through “The Worldwide Leader in Sports” to sit down at the table with Texas and Oklahoma to broker a deal. The Cougars also need to follow the example of the Utes and be willing to take less money in the first few years of membership to make it happen.

#2. Tell the Mountain West to take a hike when it comes to football.

If BYU is locked out of a major conference it must give serious consideration to becoming a football independent. Two things are necessary to make this happen. BYU must create its own TV contract worth several million dollars a year and it must broker a deal into the BCS in the process, essentially a mini-Notre Dame arrangement. Again the Cougars could turn to ESPN, who back in 1998 was willing to give the MWC $48 million over eight years for the sole purpose of having BYU on their air.

The other MWC schools would certainly squawk if BYU were to act this boldly. They may even threaten to kick their other programs out of the conference, but its not likely they actually would. If they did vote the Cougars out, BYU could take its ball and join Gonzaga in the WCC.

#3. Stay in the MWC but seek your own TV contract.

This is the least palatable of the three ideas offered here. The Cougars and the MWC can continue to try to develop the league into an automatic qualifier conference, but strike their own TV deal. BYU could tell Comcast/CBS College Sports to keep their $1.2 million if necessary. Obviously this option could get messy legally.

These are just a few ideas to get the juices flowing. There are a lot of smart people available to BYU to help figure this out. Perhaps there other, better ideas or variations on the ideas offered. One thing’s for sure though, BYU’s world changed on Thursday and if the determination is to play with the big boys, the status-quo won’t do.