Well, the BYU Cougars have finished a season for the record books. Four straight 10-win seasons. Max Hall became the all-time winningest QB in BYU history and became the best in a lot of QB statistics in the MWC record books. Harvey Unga became the all-time leader rusher in BYU history. Dennis Pitta became the all-time receptions leader in BYU history and set a myriad of other records for a BYU TE. Jan Jorgensen set sack records. Brian Logan set pass interference records...
Anyway, it was a record-breaking season, and this in a year where they finished second place in the conference. They spent a brief period of time in the top 10. With a bowl victory, they will finish very close to the top 10 as well (with enough upsets they could even break into the top 10). They are returning 8 starters on an offense that averaged 35 points/game.
So what's the outlook for next season: not good. At least for the standard that Bronco Mendenhall has set. He is going to be a victim of his own success. It will be a rebuilding year, most likely. Bronco's last rebuilding effort led to a 10-2 season, conference championship team. The main difference between next year's team and that one: the conference. Air Force was the biggest challenger for the top of the league. It was a very weak MWC for sure: TCU was around .500 that season. Utah was busy trying to overcome a 27-0 loss at UNLV. It was a year that put a lot of coaches on the hot seat. BYU filled the void. Next year, however, the rebuilding will result in a few extra losses. Replacing: the best TE tandem in the country, Max Hall, 6 of the front 7 on a D that was one of the best run D's in the country, and Scott Johnson, the QB of the defense.
The schedule isn't extremely kind: start with Washington at home, Florida State on the road, Nevada at home, and Utah State on the road. They SHOULD be 2-2 at worst. Washington could be a good team next year, certainly a pretty talented team. The Florida State product may not be much better than this year's team with the coaching regime change, but this year's product blasted BYU in Provo. Nevada should, in all likelihood, be a win. Utah State is improved, and things might get feisty up there. Right now, they look like the classiest program in the state. If Max Hall is right, Utah is classless and BYU, because of Max Hall's (and Jan Jorgensen's) recent comments, is as well. Way to go Aggies.
The conference schedule puts BYU against the top 3 MWC teams on the road. TCU is a loss. Utah has some question marks going in to next year, starting with that D that was good, but not great. It's going to be replacing essentially its top 7 defensive players. Air Force isn't a tough place to play necessarily, so being on the road for that one won't be too bad. They should be able to take CSU on the road. Wyoming, SDSU, UNLV, and New Mexico all go to Provo next year. I figure they have 6 games won already (Nevada, CSU, 4 conference home games) and 2 lost (Florida State and TCU). They are just playing for the middle 4 (Washington, Utah State, Utah, and Air Force). I'd say 8-4/9-3 sounds about right, good enough for a 2nd-3rd place finish in the MWC. I look forward to seeing how the bowl matchup plays out. If they go to the Vegas Bowl, it could be against: Cal, Stanford, USC, or Oregon State. Any of those would be a great draw/test/game. If they go to the Poinsettia: Arizona. Again. I am hoping they go to Vegas (again) so they can get a much higher quality (and new) opponent.
Good analysis Mo. BYU is basically a 9 or 10 win team. They don't have the speed to compete with the big boys, nor the athletes. So that gives them 1 or 2 losses out of conference and 1 or 2 losses in conference every year; thus 2 or 3 losses year in and year out. Consistency, but not greatness.
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