My thoughts on BYU's departure

Well said. I hope both the MWC schools and the WAC schools boycott BYU by not scheduling them for future games. This year is going to be interesting as they make their farewell tour throught the MWC. Hate is a harsh word, but I will say that many New Mexico fans, including myself, really, really, really despise BYWho gives a sh*t. Good bye and good riddance!!

My take is that either BYU starts scheduling a bunch of big names (as some of their fans claim they will) and get stomped and have .500 seasons, or they schedule a bunch of patsies and play on wednesdays/thursdays and no one bats an eyelash because they have 3 D-IAA schools on their schedule…

Either way, the real loser in this is BYU basketball and Dave Rose. I’m not sure he is coaching there in a few years.

I hope TCU stays. That’s good people right.

The fact is, once UTAH left, AQ status was a pipe-dream. The MWC needed ALL FOUR of their teams to qualify. Once one jumped shipped, another following suit isn’t a surprise. Get over it and realize that the MWC is the top-notch mid-major conference in the country and be proud of that. BYU was tired of carrying the conference in both $$$ and notoriety.

What a crybaby!

The WCC doesn’t even carry several sports that BYU currently fields.

Can you go independent in track and field? Does BYU get an invite to the MWC League Championship meet? (Answer: No)

I can’t imagine a serious university would even consider ending several scholarship sports and hundreds of athletes like this. Ugly!

It’s BYU that has sour grapes. They were upset that Utah left to greener pastures. The Utah / Bosie State swap did nothing to hurt the MWC. I think the MWC is still strong. We can live without BYU and I’m sure BYU can live without the MWC. Time will tell for both. It’s interesting that the MWC was on the doorstep of being BCS AQ. BYU not only hurt the conference, but hurt themselves as well. I think BYU’s road to a BCS game just got harder. As for the television issue, nobody watches byu.tv unless you are a member of the church. That’s less exposure than the mtn. They will apparently get some games on ESPN. But, if they play the likes of Texas .. they better win at least 50% of the games they play against BCS schools or ESPN won’t care anymore. They have a tough row to hoe. Good Luck (and good bye)

I’m sorry you had a terrible experience with some BYU fans in Las Vegas (it really does sound like they were jerks—every fan base has them). But I guarantee you those fans were not representative of all of us. But then I’ve decided that to a large degree people see what they want to see when it comes to BYU fans.

But then apparently I’m just socially inept. Who knew. Thanks for enlightening me.

Because we all were on the brink of something very special that we had all worked hard to achieve. All of us including BYU. (And Utah.)

The only thing that most of us post on here is our opinion. And I’m no different. I’m not saying that the LDS church is evil because they’re not looking at this as sports fans; just the opposite. The fact that their motivation differs from most folks here on this blog is just a fact of life. They are a church and their goal is spreading their faith. No, I wasn’t in the board meetings, I just have a realistic view of what they’re trying to achieve. They have much more important things on their minds than games.

Actually, I didn’t. But I did miss all of this.

I do want to clarify one thing: my ‘televangelism’ remark wasn’t meant as a pejorative. It was simply the shortest possible way to summarize a motive.

Also, as far as BYU’s motivation goes: it may seem odd to make a move that appears to put the TV commercials ahead of their sports programs, but we can’t ignore that BYU is ultimately an extension of a church, and that church (like most churches) wants to get its message out. If they feel it’s more important to do that, then at least they’re staying consistent to their point of view.

I can’t blame them for wanting more money either. Every athletic department in the country seems caught up in a craze to get more. I’m at Tennessee right now, and if they could convince Starbucks to put orange Power T’s in the foam on lattes, they’d happily negotiate a branding fee for it. The local airwaves are filled with commercials that try to guilt-trip us if we don’t buy the ‘official’ t-shirt for the opening game (seriously; they pull out the ‘true fan’ schtick and everything). The bigger an athletic department’s support base, the more insane their obsession with money becomes. Everybody’s trying to get more money, and I can’t knock BYU for it.

It’s not like BYU’s decision was entirely bad. I feel it was premature, especially when they could have taken a year to weigh their options and wait to see how the other conferences panned out. But they disagree with my opinion on that, and that’s fine. The WCC isn’t a bad place for their other sports and they’ll find a way to take care of the rest. The media types at the school are undoubtedly thrilled, though.

I’m disappointed by this for so many reasons. I felt BYU was a team that TCU could finally build up a good in-conference rivalry with- we haven’t had one since we were with Rice and SMU in the WAC. I felt that BYU would be beside TCU and Boise State as we climbed definitively over the Big East and ACC to full BCS status. I felt that even without Utah, when Fresno and Nevada were secured we would be a better conference.

Earlier today I felt betrayed and hurt, like our comrade in arms stabbed us in the back. Now I’m just disappointed with how this turned out. I think BYU’s football team will regret independence, even if the church will benefit from the added exposure. I think that this will serve to drop them further below Utah, rather than keep up with them as BYU is obviously hoping it does. Time will tell, I suppose. The MWC won’t be having you back though, so if independence doesn’t work out, it’ll have to be CUSA who takes you on.

As someone who actually does care about BYU football, I think I need to start a new website. FireTomHolmoe.com.

From a Mormon who cares nothing for BYU ……………… may you fade into obscurity and never be seen again!

No one respects a MWC Conference Title. Basketball regular season titles don’t even get acknowledged. What’s the point?

BYU has resources that they don’t want to go unused. Why can’t they better their own situation? The new landscape of college athletics is becoming a do whats best for yourself type of world. That’s what BYU is doing, improving their profile.

Dan Wetzel over at Yahoo! who studies the BCS in-depth even said the MWC had no shot of a BCS AQ bid when Utah left.

Now going Independent will open doors to some better bowl tie-ins out West.

This is a smart move by BYU that had to be done. If anyone else in this league had the resources BYU does and the following, they would do the same thing. End of story.