7 Reasons BYU May Be the Next Notre Dame in the Next 100 Years

Texas A&M is looking at making a 100-year decision. One can only applaud that long view.

In looking back, the premier school of the last 100 years has unquestioningly been Notre Dame. Any school looking to achieve that status for the next 100 years must look at what Notre Dame did, compare itself to those achievements and evaluate those assets to see if it can become the “next” Notre Dame.

Only one school has that opportunity to out-Notre-Dame Notre Dame. And that is BYU.

"What?", you ask. Let’s look at 7 reasons why.

Independence

Notre Dame is and has been independent. If you want control of your income, schedules and opponents, you have to be independent. As teams rise and fall, budgets and economies come and go, “standing independent from the world” has never been more important. The looming financial crises may well push some schools to consider dropping football as a drain upon the resources of the state budgets.

Independence allows for flexibility in perilous times. Notre Dame has proven that as prominent teams came, and went, Notre Dame remained, independent.

ESPN Makes Good Teams Better, the Exposure Factor Helps College Football

Eight years of TV exposure brings in a lot of opportunity to showcase talent and program strengths. The additional factor that benefits BYU is having the opportunity to schedule games at will on any night ESPN wants to feature the school. The better it plays, the better times and channel BYU will get, thus exposing it to yet more and more talent who otherwise would not even know BYU existed.

Look at what Thursday and Friday nights have done for Boise State. Freedom to schedule a game on the days and weeks you want, at the times you want—instead of being dictated to by a conference—is a major advantage.

National and International Recruiting of Athletes Compliments BYU Mission

BYU is a school with an international following. Football is just one of the sports BYU excels at. Rugby, lacrosse, volleyball, basketball and track and field have all been very successful for BYU. Kresmir Cosic from Yugoslavia was a noted star. The islands of the Pacific are fertile for BYU. Now BYU has the opportunity to not only recruit for football, but a host of other sports worldwide, supported by “away” games that could be played in any national capital in any nation in the world.

BYU's motto is "the world is our campus." Until now, it could recruit, but an athlete's parents would never see that child compete. Now with BYU-TV and ESPN, all that has changed. Recruitment worldwide is no longer a dream, but an imminent reality.

LDS Church Worldwide Audience

With 15 million members worldwide, and growing, the LDS church—with its focus on missionary work and current growth—could easily reach over 100 million in the next 100 years. Just 40 years ago, the church had only 1 million members.

Some projects put the growth trend in 100 years at over 300 million. That would rank it behind Islam, Buddhism and the Catholic church worldwide.

That membership will want to participate in the success of the “church’s school” just like Catholics do with Notre Dame and other Catholic schools. It will want that in all sports, not just football. BYU already has more foreign languages spoken on campus than any other school in the country, and foreign students are growing. As they go home, they and their family and friends will want to keep up on BYU.

Exposure to Texas Brings Problems for Big 12, Rewards for BYU

Texas knows that by launching Longhorn TV, it is destroying the Big 12. But it will also make BYU a preeminent power in college athletics.

If you are a championship swimmer from South Africa, your parents will be able to watch ALL of your matches on BYU-TV. If you are a soccer star from Rio, your friends can watch you on BYU-TV. If you play volleyball in Australia, yep, your mates will see you on BYU-TV. And as for rugby, I predict a BYU championship soon, because the exposure on BYU-TV will help recruit players from countries where family and friends will be able to watch the games. The school already has one of the best rugby teams in all of collegiate sports.

BYU-TV is the only station of its kind right now. That advantage will spell exposure, and eventually, recruits. It is the only station of its kind in the world. 

Money Is Secondary, It's About Fan Power, but It's About the Money Too...

LDS fans turn up locally for any game played anywhere in the world. Think of BYU-Notre Dame playing in Wembly Stadium. Or BYU-Texas in Mexico City. How about a BYU-Michigan game in Kiev, or BYU-Houston in Madrid? BYU-USC in Tokyo, anyone?

In each of those locations, the LDS church has enough members to fill the stadium, with no tickets left over for the other team. Talk about home field advantage away from home, just like Notre Dame has had for 100 years. 

One of the advantages of Notre Dame has been its "travel power", both with fans who are in town, and out of town. With BYU, a whole new dimension is emerging. It is a unity across borders, oceans and continents.

Who's talking “travels well” now?

Imagination, Those Who Have It Prosper, Those Who Don't Fade Away

The imagination has yet to conceive of the potentials as the LDS church has considered on more than one occasion the possibility of establishing BYU-level schools in Arizona, Israel, Europe and other locations.

BYU has just begun its journey not to national prominence, but world prominence in every sport. Suppose BYU had not only BYU in Provo, but also a different school in five or six conferences. As the church grows, we could see not only the three current schools, BYU, BYU-Idaho and BYU-Hawaii, but Arizona, Virginia, Texas, California and New England. All in the NCAA, all playing on BYU-TV—and perhaps, ESPN.

Is there enough imagination to go around to see BYU-Idaho playing for the national championship of the FCS, while BYU-Provo is playing for a BCS national championship, while BYU-Hawii is playing for a Division II title? Perhaps not all in the same year, but the "pursuit of excellence" mantra is ingrained in a culture that knows no earthly bounds to its reality, or imagination. 

The next 100 years will belong to one of two schools. One from the past, and one moving into the future. Only the future will tell us if it is Notre Dame or BYU.