Cougars give Big East a Big Thumbs Down

In the NCAA’s most poorly-kept secret, the Big East had discussions with BYU about a football-only membership, and BYU was not interested.  Some are actually disappointed with this development, and some even say that BYU cannot afford to turn down any conference that automatically qualifies for the BCS bowls.  They are wrong.  The Cougars were very intelligent to turn down the Big East, for numerous reasons.

 First, some background information into how things are usually done in major conferences is necessary.  Conference ABC is interested in Team XYZ.  Conference ABC contacts Team XYZ to see if they would be interested in membership.  If the answer is yes, they discuss logistics.  If it looks like a good fit for both sides, Team XYZ is invited to “apply for membership.”  Then, Conference ABC “deliberates” before finally inviting Team XYZ to join.

 This gives both conferences and teams a chance to “save face” by denying that any serious discussions or offers were ever made if either side decides it isn’t a good fit.  Obviously, with the Big East and BYU, it never got past the exploratory stage.  In the past, we would never know that this had ever happened.  In today’s climate, though, it is almost impossible to keep a secret this big, and it was leaked.

 There are a few big reasons that BYU was 100 percent correct in turning down the Big East:

 

1.  As football conferences go, the Big East is the Big Least.

 The Big East is a great basketball conference.  As a football conference, though, they are the worst of the six BCS conferences.  While this would appear to be great when looking at it superficially because it is the easiest conference to win, it isn’t all that great.  When Cincinnati, Texas, and Alabama went undefeated in 2009, it was the Big East team that got left out of the National Championship game.

 Big East football is a no-win situation.  The teams are good enough to spring an upset, but not good enough to inspire confidence among the voters or come up big in the computers.  Basically, BYU would help the Big East a lot more than the Big East would help BYU.

 

2.  The Notre Dame Factor

 As it stands now, BYU is poised to be in a two-team de facto “conference” with Notre Dame as its only competition for a BCS berth.  Notre Dame is probably going to be a very tough team with Brain Kelly at the helm.  He has apparently survived the Declan Sullivan tragedy with his job intact, and will be running his version of the spread with the kind of talent that Notre Dame can attract.

 However, there is no guarantee that Notre Dame will ever be “Notre Dame” again.  Notre Dame hasn’t been “Notre Dame” since the book “Under the Tarnished Dome” came out in 1993.  The media, though, still treat Notre Dame as if they were as good as they used to be, even when they aren’t much better than a MAC team.

 What this means for BYU is that if they prove themselves to be equal to or better than Notre Dame as an independent, they will start getting the nicer bowl bids.  And an undefeated BYU with a victory over a resurgent Notre Dame has a lot better chance to get into the BCS Championship Game than a Big East Champion.

 

3.  The Travel Nightmare

 The geography is ludicrous for a move such as this one.  A team that is a few hundred miles from the Pacific Ocean is not a good travel fit for a conference whose main constituency is within a few hundred miles of the Atlantic Ocean.  For the other teams, it would be no problem, because they would travel to Provo once every other year at the most.

 But for the Cougars, it would mean four trips across the country every year.   First of all, this would be bad for the student-athletes, requiring an extra day out of school for those weeks.  Secondly, it would cost the school more money than they would make.  And this brings us to the next point.

 

4.  BYU would Lose Money

 The added travel would add expenses to the Cougars, but they would get less TV money from the Big East than they are getting now as an independent.  I won’t go into the math here, but you don’t have to be an accountant to see this:

 The Big East payout minus travel expenses is less than the independent payout minus smaller travel expenses.

 There is just no way to justify the loss of revenue or the ROI of a move to the Big East.

 

5.  No Traditional Rivalries

 BYU doesn’t have any traditional rivalries with any of the Big East teams.  They would be a curiosity at first, but it would probably take at least five years for any new rivalries to develop.  That is too long to wait.

 The bottom line here is that it is a no-win situation for the Cougars.  The only way it could possibly work is if the Big East became a mega-conference with a Western Division.  Even then, the Big East Western Division just doesn’t sound right.

 BYU, like Notre Dame, is one of the few schools who is much better off as an independent.  Notre Dame is often perceived as the national university for Catholics.  BYU really is the national university for LDS members.  This gives BYU a national fan base unlike any other.  The fanbase also “travels well” to bowl games.

 Until a conference that has can offer true quid pro quo to BYU makes an offer, the Cougars should continue as an independent.  It is rumored that many other schools are watching the BYU business model very closely.  If this is true, BYU just might be the first of many schools to reject the current BCS business model.

 Wouldn’t that be interesting…

John Beck: Is His Time Now?

The numbers in John Beck’s senior season were impressive.  He passed for 3,885 yards and 32 touchdowns with 8 interceptions.  In the NFL, though, those numbers are 559 yards, 1 touchdown, and 3 interceptions.  He did this in 1 partial game and 4 starts with the Miami Dolphins in 2007.  He eventually would lose his job to rookie Chad Henne in 2008.

He spent 2009 on the bench in Baltimore, and 2010 on the bench in Washington.  He has played under three coaches with three different systems in three years.  This year, though, if there is an NFL season, Beck might finally get the opportunity to be a starting quarterback while actually having two years in the system.

Donovan McNabb has a bonus of $10 million waiting for him if he survives the day after the first game of the 2011 season.  Since coach Mike Shanahan isn’t particularly enamored withMcNabb or his performance last season, most observers think McNabb is toast.  That leaves John Beck and maybe Rex Grossman, but Grossman doesn’t have a contract yet.

Quarterback is one of the toughest positions to learn quickly.  If you are a receiver, lineman, or running back, all you have to remember is where to line up and what your assignment is for any play.  The quarterback has to remember the entire play.  He has to know everyone’s assignments.  This is why a lot of talented quarterbacks don’t make it on the next level, whether it is going from high school to college or college to the NFL.  There is just too much to learn.

Beck is now in a position where he has had a year and an offseason to learn the offense and its terminology.  At 29, he is at an age where a lot of quarterbacks are in their prime.  This year is probably a make or break year for Beck.  If he is going to be a starting NFL quarterback, this is probably his best opportunity to become one.

The best-case scenario for Beck is for Grossman to sign elsewhere and McNabb to stay in coach Mike Shanahan’s doghouse.  McNabb is a fine quarterback, but is nearing the end of a long and productive career.  He is probably a better mentor than quarterback now.  I can’t see the Redskins paying a $10 million bonus to him, though.  Also, it’s tough to be a mentor when you are in the coach’s  doghouse.

So, it looks like Beck has a great chance to start this year.  It seemed like it would always be that way after he got four starts as a rookie in 2007.  He didn’t win any, but it’s not like the Dolphins were doing much, either.  It looked like Beck would have a legitimate chance at being the starting QB for the Dolphins in 2008.

But one addition can change everything, especially if that addition’s name is Bill Parcells.  Parcells apparently decided that Beck was not his guy.  Before long, Parcells had drafted Chad Henne out of Michigan in 2008 and picked up much-traveled veteran QB Josh McCown.  Then, on August 8, after Chad Pennington had been cut by the New York Jets, Parcells signed Pennington to a 2-year, $11.5 million contract.

In an ideal world, one would say that John Beck just lost to better competition.  In the real world, though, the new boss always wants to put in “his guys.”  Bill Parcells, even as a GM, embodies that concept, especially when one of “his guys” is making $5.5 million a year.

Beck stayed on the roster that year, and then Parcells drafted QB Pat White out of West Virginia to run some “wildcat” plays.  The writing was on the wall, and Beck was finally granted a release on April 27, 2009, after Parcells realized he had devalued Beck so badly that he wasn’t going to get anything for him in trade.

Beck then went to the Baltimore Ravens, whose Offensive Coordinator was Cam Cameron, who was the head coach who had drafted Beck in the first place.  Beck didn’t see any action, though.  In August of 2010. Beck was traded to the Redskins and promptly sat behind McNabb while learning the offense.

In Washington, coach Mike Shanahan runs a run-heavy version of the West Coast Offense, which is probably the best possible NFL situation for Beck.  In Shanahan’s version of the West Coast Offense, the QB isn’t expected to win games as much as he is expected not to lose any.  Though Shanahan’s best years were with Hall-of-Fame QB John Elway in Denver, Shanahan’s version is still the most QB-friendly of any West Coast permutation.

Beck has had a year to learn this offense behind Donovan McNabb.  And while he obviously doesn’t have McNabb’s running ability, he is still the person who was largely responsible for BYU beating Oregon 38-8 in the Las Vegas Bowl in 2006. Make no mistake about it: John Beck can still throw the football and he can run the West Coast Offense.  Beck can be a caretaker until he gets more experience, and then he could start winning a game or two with his arm.  
Really, though, the time is now for John Beck.  He is going to be thirty years old before the season starts, assuming there is a season.  He is going to have to take advantage of the opportunity he has this year to become an “overnight success” that was five years in the making.

Because he served on a mission, Beck, like many BYU grads, was a few years older than the usual rookie when he got to the NFL.  The fact that he has lasted even five years is a compliment to his ability.  Most journeyman QB’s his age are tossed to the scrap heap by now, but Beck is showing something that makes coaches want to keep him.

Hopefully, John Beck gets a chance to show exactly what he can do this year.

Austin Collie Feels “Phenomenal”

But Is Anybody Convinced?

Even if you aren’t a BYU fan, chances are you’ve heard of Austin Collie, or at least seen a “highlight” of his 2010 season.  Playing against the Eagles last November 7, he caught one of the scariest hits of the year when he was hit cleanly in the shoulder by Quintin Mikell while being simultaneously speared in the head by Kurt Coleman.

According to the neurosurgeon who routinely works Colts’ games, Collie was out for 34-40 seconds.  The doctor commented that he had never seen a player out for that long.  After telling the staff that he couldn’t get up or he would vomit, Collie was carried off on a stretcher.  Despite the penalty that was called on the play, Coleman was able to convince the league that the helmet to helmet hit was purely accidental.

You can be the judge by watching this video:

At any rate, Collie sustained a concussion on the play.  He was cleared less than two weeks later to play again and left after 11 snaps and a dizzy spell.

On December 19, he once again left a game with a concussion, this time after a clean hit.

Before both of the games Collie played after the initial concussion, he passed what is called an ImPACT test.  It stands for Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing.  It is done with the aid of a computer and is accepted as the most comprehensive and accurate test for evaluating concussions.  Even though he passed the test, though, he developed post-concussion symptoms on normal hits in both of the games he played.

Two weeks after the Colts lost in the playoffs to the Jets, Collie took the test yet again and was given a clean bill of health.  He is now working out in California, getting ready for what he hopes will be an NFL season later this year.  He could find himself squarely in the middle of a debate.

The NFL, along with other sports, is a lot more careful about concussions than they used to be.  The deaths of NFL alumni Dave Duerson at 50 and Andre Waters at 44, both by suicide, and the revelation Mike Webster, who died at 50, already had dementia and depression for years before his death, has a lot of people worried.

Even worse, they played just before the era when advances in conditioning exploded.  In this era, players almost look like mutants, and the collisions are much harder than they were in the era before science really took hold in the weight room.

It is now known that if you get too many concussions, you will probably become depressed and suffer from dementia far earlier in life than most people, and that your life span will probably be considerably shortened.  The question for Austin Collie is whether it is worth the risk to play football anymore.

The ImPACT test is great at measuring whether your concussion is affecting your reflexes, coordination, concentration, and short-term memory now, but it isn’t great at telling you whether you are susceptible to another concussion from minimal impact.  In fact, nobody can really predict what is going to happen.  Many athletes get one or two concussions and never suffer another one.  Many suffer concussions in double digits before retiring from sports.

Christopher Nowinski, Harvard grad and ex-WWE wrestler, suffered from post-concussion symptoms for a year after a concussion forced him to quit professional wrestling.  He subsequently founded the Sports Legacy Institute, and is now acknowledged as “the” expert in sports-related concussions.

He has been instrumental in getting the medical community to fully investigate the aforementioned deaths.  In the case of Waters, it was found that his brain tissue was more like that of a 85 year-old man than a man of 44.  The gist of his research is that it there is an alarming connection between multiple concussions and a brain condition known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE.

CTE involves premature degeneration of brain tissue, and can be so extensive that it is misdiagnosed as ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.  Symptoms are memory loss, confusion, aggression, depression, or dementia, and can show up years after the injury.

So, what does this all mean to Austin Collie?  It means that he could be fine, or he could be a walking time bomb.  It has to be a tough position.  As a rookie, Collie led all NFL rookie receivers with 7 touchdowns and 60 receptions.  Even though he only played in 9 games in 2010 due to injury, he still had 58 receptions for 649 yards and 8 touchdowns.

He is in what should be considered the prime of his career by NFL standards, and has been given a “clean bill of health” by a battery of doctors.  If it was even ten years ago, nobody would think twice about Collie taking the field.  But it is a different era and there is more information available about the effects of multiple concussions.

He could have a long career with no ill effects, but he could also sustain more and more “sub-concussions” with every hit he takes due to a compromised condition.  Worse yet, the next big hit could cause an injury with life-altering consequences.

It might be better for Collie if there was no NFL season this year, and he had to take an entire year off.  If he went a full year with no impact, it may give him more time to heal fully, and might take the field next year with no lingering effects or risks from his previous concussions.

It’s obvious that he will play, though, either way.  I just hope he’s making the right decision.  Collie has a warrior’s mentality on the field and won’t quit until he has nothing left to give.  Ultimately, though he should ask himself this question: if the player in question was your son, would you tell him to play or retire?

We have opened up comments for this post, let us know what you would do by commenting!

The ESPN Contract and National Exposure

 

The effects of this contract cannot be understated.  By moving to independent status, BYU has gone from a regional curiosity that occasionally gets national exposure to a team that is now front and center on the national stage.  It is said that you cannot buy that kind of exposure.  That makes it especially good that ESPN is actually paying BYU to give them exposure on national television a minimum of three times a year, with options for more games on ESPNU.

 

The Cougars are already seeing immediate benefits from their association.  ESPN is working behind the scenes to negotiate better matchups for BYU.  It was ESPN who did much of the legwork that resulted in the impending series against Texas.  ESPN is actively trying to set the Cougars up with more compelling matchups starting in 2013.

 

There are two very important aspects to this development.  First of all, it means that a national audience will see BYU play marquee games against elite teams on national television on a regular basis.  More importantly, though, it provides the Cougars with a great opportunity, but one that has inherent risks.

 

The marquee games are a great opportunity, but they could also backfire if the Cougars don’t play well in those games.  The exposure is great, but only if you put your best foot forward.  This year and next year will be “trial runs.”  This year is probably going to be a year of transition.  The Cougars may turn out great this year, and they may catch Texas at a great time to get a big win on national TV.

 

But this year isn’t as important as next year.  And starting in 2013, the Cougars could become perennial BCS game contenders if they make the right moves and get the right breaks.

 

BYU is at a slight disadvantage compared to other schools because most of the players are LDS members.  In addition, non-members are required to adhere to the BYU honor code, which is based on LDS tenets.  There are two advantages to this requirement, though.

 

The first is that there are almost never issues involving ethics or the criminal justice system.  LDS members just don’t get into trouble as much as non-members do.  To be fair, kids who go to almost any church have less brushes with the law and less character issues than kids who don’t.  Nevertheless, it is a huge benefit to know that you can trust your teammates.  And it is a huge benefit for a coach to know that he won’t get a phone call at 3:00 am with bad news about a player.

 

The second advantage is that so many players go on missions and come back older and more mature, both physically and mentally.  Players leave for missions as boys and come back as men.  No matter how you cut it, a 23 year-old man is going to outplay a 20 year-old boy more often than not if the talent levels are remotely in the same ballpark.

 

The disadvantage, though, is that the talent pool is too small.  There are approximately 14.1 million LDS members worldwide; the US population is over 300 million.  Character counts a lot, but it’s nice to have a talent pool 20 times bigger than that of a competitor, too.  At the elite level, drawing from a pool that is 20 times smaller than your competitors is a definite disadvantage.

 

For comparison, imagine if Notre Dame fielded a team that was almost all Catholic.  There are 68 million Catholics in the US.  This is four times as many as worldwide Mormons, but only a fifth of the US population.  Even though their team has a great pipeline to many powerhouse Catholic schools, most of those schools recruit non-Catholics to play football.

 

The actual number of Catholics playing for Notre Dame right now is not available, but it can’t be more than 15 percent, and is probably a lot closer to 10 percent.

 

What does this all mean?  It means that if the Cougars want to contend for national championships on a regular basis, they are going to have to find non-member players who are willing to adhere to the BYU honor code.  The ESPN contract can only help BYU in that regard.

 

Ultimately, the bottom line is that the Cougars are a very good program right now  Their core will always be dependable, high-character LDS members who show up and play smart football.  ESPN won’t affect that either way.  BYU will always get the best Mormon players, because it is by far the best school for them to attend.

 

 

But the biggest potential benefit of the ESPN contract is that it could help the Cougars get enough non-members out of the immensely bigger talent pool to help them make that transition from very good team to perennial National Championship contender.

 

 

There are two type of schools where players are required to have more discipline than in the average program.  The first is schools that are based on church doctrines and actually enforce them.  The second is service academies.  These schools, such as BYU, Navy, Army, or the Air Force Academy, usually get better results on the field than their talent levels on paper would dictate.

 

 

This is no accident.  Imagine what could happen when you mix BYU discipline with a 6-2 wide receiver or lock-down corner who runs a 4.3 forty.  Or an RB who weighs 225 and runs a 4-4 forty.  Now, imagine having just ten of those players, who normally wouldn’t have BYU on their list, on the team every year.  That could be just enough to put the Cougars over the top.

 

 

If the Cougars take care of business on ESPN, it could very well happen.