BYU is the only mid-major that is really a BCS
 

team in terms of size, support, etc.

I find it sad that we can't even throw our weight around in our own conference.

It's for this reason that I vote we leave the MWC now and go independent. And let the major conferences know that we would look at inclusion if they were interested.

It's high-time to get out of the MWC. We don't belong. We don't get any respect.

It's the wierdness factor, as you know. Push the brethren off the board of trustees, insitute a faculty Bill of Rights that truly does mirror the federal Bill of Rights, get rid of required religion classes, raise money for a respectable endowment, raise tuition, make BYU self-financed (i.e., cut the purse strings from the mother church), and then maybe BYU will have a ghost of a chance at attracting interest from a major conference. Maybe this is worth a RICO suit from an alumnus.

It would be funny if BYU just became a "BCS" school in football without being invited to a conference. Go Independent, schedule six Pac Ten teams, four Big 12 or Big Ten teams, add Utah and Hawaii to the schedule and call it good. You could hit all the recruiting hot spots. I would be willing to pay alot more for season tickets if we got some new teams in. I'm not sure how it would work in basketball.

Going independent would be the death knell for the program.

Hardly.

We would probably end up with more exposure and more money in the money sports.

The real question would be the olympic sports. But since I don't care about those anyway, screw em.

Where would the more money and more exposure come from? Goodbye to any bowl affiliation...unless the 2 at large spots excite anyone and further more....goodbye to any BCS shot....even less of shot than before. You thought exposure with the MTN was bad? That's nothing.

BYU would be absolutely foolish to leave without a contract signed with a Major network first. And well...good luck on that ever happening. BYU is not Notre Dame

When you mention a schedule of six Pac-10 schools and four Big 12 schools, I'm sure any of them would welcome BYU into their home, but how many of the teams who are consistently over .500 would be willing to travel to Provo?

I know that in the recent past BYU has managed to secure home and home series with Notre Dame and USC (of course at the time of scheduling, nobody knew USC would be ranked #1 both years), however has it become more difficult to draw big name programs to LES, in the age of the BCS?

Mr. Ute4Ever, I'd like to say that is one great avatar. My favorite sketch is the one where he makes "donuts" by skeet shooting hamburger buns.

I think it would be tricky. You might not be able to get six every year. But you could probably get Big Ten schools like Indiana, Illinois, and Purdue to fill in when necessary. BIG 12 schools like Kansas, Kansas St., Iowa St., Oklahoma St., Baylor, Colorado, and Texas A&M, would be easy to schedule.

Throw in some rare games with Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Michigan, Penn St., and Iowa. Don't get me wrong, I don't think BYU would go 10-2 with this type of schedule very often. I'd be thrilled with 8-4 or 9-3 and have them play some new blood. It's hard to get excited about Wyoming or Colorado St.

Scheduling in football is not a problem. BYU could build a schedule as difficult as it wanted. It might be a problem to schedule in November and late October, but not early in the season.

BYU hasn't had much, if any difficulty scheduling PAC-10 teams, Big 12 schools on the other hand are an entirely different matter.

Nebraska backed out on an agreed deal to play BYU in the BCA Classic because the game was scheduled to take place at LES, so Tulane ended up taking their spot.

Oklahoma in the past couple of years also backed out on a home and home deal.

Texas A&M is the only Big 12 school I can think of that's been to LES in the past 20 years....Texas came in the late 80's.

That was 88-89, my freshman year. We demolished Texas with Sean Covey at the helm.

That was a bad Texas team. The only player I remember from then is Eric Metcalf.

I wish going independent were feasible. It would be cool to play against opponents all over the country all season long instead of going to stadiums where you are a rivalry game. A rivalry that you are unaware exists.

I was in grad school at Texas at the time. It was awesome.

I remember that 47-6 thrashing. First or 2nd play from scrimmage a long bomb for a touchdown.

If I recall the year before or after we beat them down in Texas 22-17.

How many successful independent programs are there right now?

How many successful independents were there 25 years ago versus now?

Why did that number shrink?

When you come back with answers to those questions, you'll see why BYU going independent is like strapping yourself to the railroad tracks. Sure, you might get away with it for awhile, but eventually that train's gonna come.

What are the consequences of being in a conference with no media exposure?

That, my friend, is tying yourself to the railroad tracks.

Even if the mtn gets national distribution on the most expensive tier of the satellites, we will still have a LOT LESS exposure than we did before.

1. So if BYU goes independent, what are the odds they get an attractive TV deal with someone?

2. If BYU goes independent and has 3 straight losing seasons again, what happens to that TV contract?

3. If BYU goes independent and has 3 straight losing seasons again, what happens to their shared bowl revenue? Shared NCAA tournament revenue?

4. Will BYU be able to adequately fill their home game scheduling needs (both in quality and number of opponents)?

5. Certainly with the lack of guarantees represented by #s 1 to 4, what makes you think the Board of Trustees will consider this a justifiable risk to take going independent?


P.S. You didn't really answer my questions earlier, so why don't you answer those first before answering these newer questions.

decent. this would have to be a done deal before going independent.

very unlikely. but it's a risk you have to be willing to take.
Again, does one want govt. welfare, or does one want to go for the big-time? Chicken littles never succeed.

Yes.

Due to the financial backing of big boosters.

You didn't answer my 3 original questions. There used to be a substantial group of quality independent football programs (eg. Penn State). Now, there are only 4; one of which is independent because the Big East kicked them out for sucking forever (Temple). What happened to all the rest? If independence is such a viable form of existence, why is it virtually extinct?

Notre Dame is unlike any other program with their own TV contract on a major network. There are probably only a couple of programs with a fanbase that can even approach Notre Dame's.

Army and Navy aren't exactly a shining success that would lure BYU into independence.

It seems to me that your primary modus operandi (sports, political, etc.) is that if the status quo isn't satisfactory then ANY change is going to be an improvement. That just isn't logical. I have yet to see anyone put together a solid business case why BYU going independent presents a high probability of success.

well, first of all, I would argue that BYU is unique.

We are the only BCS-type program stuck in a mid-major conference.

Hence, a different economic model applies to us. Meaning we don't have to be as successful as an independent to come out ahead.

Navy was on CSTV all year. Goes to show that you don't need a conference to ink a deal that gets you more exposure than the MWC.

I don't think this is as hard as you think it is.

And I would argue that the first priority would be to get into a BCS conference. Even after going independent.

And also, just the process of exploring it puts pressure on teh MWC and the MTN to do something right.

Penn State has a bigger fanbase than BYU does. Why did they eschew independence? You still haven't answered why independent teams have virtually ceased to exist.

Because they had the opportunity to join the Big 10.

Do you think Penn State would have chose a mid-major over indepedence? Of course they would not have. Do you suggest differently?

Again, another example of how an independent team of little stature can gets its own bowl deal:

http://www.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/...053006aas.html

Which will certainly be one of the 3 lowest paying bowls in the NCAA and which will only be payable to Navy should they be bowl-eligible. Not exactly anything to thump your chest about.

According to Wiki, the payout for the Meineke Car Care Bowl was $750,000.

Las Vegas Bowl 950,000
Poinsettia 750,000
New Mexico Bowl 750,000
Armed Forces Bowl 600,000

This divided by 9 = 338,000

Meaning that Navy came out ahead of BYU last year.

If you werent' so stubborn, Indy, you would be willing to at least explore the topic. But you have already shut down your mind.

actually, compared to the 4 bowls the MWC participated in last year, I think the Meineke bowl compares quite well.

Let's make it real simple: you present a business case why going independent is the right move for BYU. Please make sure to include risk analysis of what happens if BYU for some reason goes belly-up and there isn't any bowl revenue and/or the TV contract dries up because of it.

If you can put together some reasonable assumptions and projections, then I'll reconsider my position. See you soon.

P.S. Please also consider the legal ramifications of BYU leaving the MWC conference as part of your analysis.

Jay has already started the process for me.

http://cougarguard.com/forum/showthr...ht=independent
http://cougarguard.com/forum/showthr...ht=independent

I want you to come up with a risk assessment of staying in the MWC.

Again, you presume that any change is better than the status quo. Jay's "analysis" is a start, but his assumptions are way too optimistic, IMO, and don't include any real risk analysis.

Of course I will grant you that their are significant risks. And that's why I've said that there would have to be support from wealthy boosters. Which would be an insurance policy.

If Tom Holmoe said he was looking into models of BYU going independent and joining other conferences, that in itself, is half the battle!

1. The TV deal, which is much more lucrative than it used to be provides BYU < $1M per year. We could make that in one game with a home game against a Notre Dame. We could make double that putting the rest of the games on Channel 16 or 24 just in Utah. Any TV deal as an independent would blow away what we have now.

2. Two years removed from losing season three years in a row, BYU demand is as high as ever. The demand is there and it's not going away that easy.

3. We don't get shared bowl revenue--maybe a few hundred K at the most in a good year. Shared NCAA tournament revenue is a bigger deal.

4. Absolutely. Schedule would go something like this: 3-4 Pac 10's, 3-4 other BCS conference schools, 3-4 old MWC/other non BCS, Utah, Utah State, non D-1A. Beautiful thing.

5. BoT wouldn't even approve a Thanksgiving evening game with Utah that would have made bank, so obviously getting BoT to approve a big move would be near impossible.

Bottom line: financially it's a boon for football. Exposure wise it's a boon for football. It would be a killer for other sports unless they could get conference affiliation.

I guarantee if Penn State's choice was independence or the MWC, they would go independent. Non-BCS status is killing us more and more every year.

That's not the question, nor was it the choice that Penn State was presented with. The question is why has independence virtually ceased to exist? What were the financial drivers involved? Why has no one willingly gone from a conference affiliation to independent status (is Army the sole exception)?

Indy where's the risk? In the 1-26 basketball season, BYU got better TV ratings than Utah did (#9 all time program just ask them).

BYU interest is exploding. Coming off three losing seasons, we sold out the Vegas Bowl two years in a row. Even during those three losing seasons and a bogged down by a MWC schedule we had home games against USC and Notre Dame to market. Either one of those could have funded the entire MWC TV budget split.

The risk is in the non-football sports. And that's a big risk. There's virtually no risk in football.

The story here is whether or not a huge financial and exposure benefit in football is worth risk in the other sports. It almost seems silly to worry about risk to the football program when we get so little from the conference currently.

It's crazy to think we get less than $1 million per year, and the Big Least teams get $10 million per year.

Is BYU so different than those Big East teams? Sure Wyoming, CSU, Air Force etc. are absolute nobodies. But BYU?

Well, $$ talks. That BYU's dollar amounts are closer to those of Wyoming, CSU and Utah says a lot.

It's because we are subsidizing the other teams. We are the flagship of the MWC, hands down.