There’s a fundamental flaw mixed into the shade and shadow that covers BYU football this time around, but, no matter, the shade covers it, still. It’s a shadow not unknown to BYU heading into a new season after a freshly completed great one, stemming back to 1984 and stemming now. In a double-barreled way, the whole of it is the Cougars’ own fault, a fault half of which they own, the other half of which they do not.
What they achieve over the next four months, coming out of practices through the next three weeks, will be used as a measure, as substantiation or a lack of it, for what they did last season.
Nobody would care so much about any of this if it weren’t for that 11-1 mark posted in 2020. The Cougars played spectacularly, beating opponents at every turn, short of a road game 2,000 miles away that was thrown together two days beforehand against a quality-if-lesser-known team. But … were the Cougars themselves spectacular? Did they deserve to even sniff spectacularity, given the weak schedule they played?
What exactly does whipping up on Troy and Texas State and North Alabama prove?
Now 2021 offers something different, as have a number of more recent independent schedules — including last year’s original slate — that could eventually blow away the shade and shadow for good, if the results are top drawer.
You’ve seen the new schedule launch: Arizona, Utah, Arizona State. From there, they get South Florida, Utah State, Boise State. Next, there’s Baylor, Washington State and Virginia. They finish up with Idaho State, Georgia Southern and USC.
There are a couple of easy games, games BYU has won before it even plays. All the others are respectable challenges, worthy opponents that if the Cougars beat them, the accomplishment will fall on a spectrum from good to shocking.
And particular games, against Arizona, Utah, Arizona State, Baylor, Washington State, Virginia and USC, are beyond big. Each of them represents two games now, one for this season, one for last. One for this year’s squad, one for last year’s, the aforementioned team that flew high, that won week after week after week, that yielded the No. 2 pick in the NFL Draft, one of the country’s best quarterbacks, but that never had a shot at a P5 opponent.
There are seven of those awaiting on 2021′s sked, including what are predicted to be three of the best teams in the Pac-12.
What this means is that, stirred in with all the others, under the two-for-the-price-of-one theory, BYU could be the first football team in college football history to go 24-0 in a single season.
Exaggeration.
Even minus the hyperbole, the Cougars won’t win every game, but with a wild stretch of the imagination, they at least could. If not in real numbers, in unreal ones.
Those first three games are monumental, both substantive and substantiative. Not that Arizona is anything of lofty magnitude, but that game is to be played in the Las Vegas Raiders’ new palace and, if properly handled, will set up what comes thereafter in a positive manner.
Utah is … well, Utah. And the Utes, who haven’t lost to BYU in forever, are going to be one mother of a team this season. They are loaded with talent, with their typical solid defense and they even have a quarterback for this year’s trip.
If the Cougars beat these Utes, who have forgotten how to lose to BYU, even as the game is to be played at LaVell Edwards Stadium, it not only would smudge Utah’s season, it would elevate BYU’s in a euphoric way, one that might encourage the Cougars to collectively knock back a few celebratory postgame brewskis, and cause the stodgy, zealous Honor Code office to giggle and look the other way.
Beating Utah has gotten that scarce.
And Arizona State has 21 of its 22 starters back, and, despite being caught up in a nasty scandal right now, is a favorite among some to win the Pac-12 South.
Those next three opponents are teams BYU would expect to defeat, although Boise is a respected program that deserves that respect.
Baylor on the road will be difficult, and Washington State in Pullman … who knows?
Virginia is one of the more fascinating games of the season for BYU, on account of You-Know-Who returning to Provo. But Bronco Mendenhall’s team is projected as a middle-of-the-pack ACC get-up, yet the Cavs present enough of a challenge for the Cougars for them to feel satisfied with any kind of victory.
USC at the Coliseum to finish the regular season will be either a crowning achievement of a legitimizing season or a hammer to the head after a disappointing one, depending on what everyone sees out of BYU by late November.
The Cougars deserve accolades for what they put together under dire circumstances in 2020, considering they had their toughest schedule ever all lined up, and then, because of COVID’s unkind hand, scrambled to find anyone — and we mean anyone — to play. They had some nice wins, solid ones, but most of their victories were smeared by vast absences of talent among those they conquered.
Few current Cougar players or coaches want to acknowledge or comment on responsibility now for making authentic anything from last season, preferring to leave the achievements of the past in the past, as well as any additional pressure from carrying such responsibility, focusing instead on what’s directly ahead.
Some, after all, consider this a rebuilding season for BYU.
Cornerback D’Angelo Mandell tosses aside both notions, saying: “This is a new year. I don’t believe in pressure like that. We’re just playing football, having a good time doing what we love.”
Good answer, good attitude, good grief.
There’s no denying that perception is perception.
Perception is powerful.
And with absolutely no doubt, fair or not, to some degree, the 2021 Cougars are hauling a double dose of tonnage from yesterday to today. This year’s weight and last year’s. However many wins they get, multiply them by two. And the losses? Same thing.
Sure, there’s a major flaw in that.
Namely, that this isn’t the same team.
This … is … not … the … same … team.
But it’s an imperfect world in which the BYU Cougars play.
And make no mistake, they’re in it.
GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Jake Scott weekdays from 2-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone.
