A discussion I had with Rondo Fehlberg, who at the time was BYU’s athletic director, came to mind recently when assessing the Cougars’ success in football during the past season. What spurred the memory was BYU’s convincing win over a talented Colorado team in the Alamo Bowl, and the transfer success the Cougars have had in the aftermath.
The win was convincing, at least to some, because it indicated that maybe, just maybe, the Cougars were worthy of more serious consideration for the 12-team college football playoff, the playoff that ended last week with Ohio State beating Notre Dame in what was at last a legitimate, earned-on-the-field national championship.
Some observers really believe now that not only did BYU deserve a spot in that tournament, but that it might have done some damage to quality opponents had it been invited.
In a road game during the regular season, the Cougars beat SMU, a team that did make it into the playoff, and it played competitively on the road against Arizona State, another team that made it in. And the Sun Devils might have defeated Texas in the playoff were it not for a missed targeting call that would have put them in favorable position for victory.
Against Colorado, BYU went up against the Heisman Trophy winner, Travis Hunter, and a quarterback projected to be one of the top picks in the coming NFL draft, Shedeur Sanders. The Cougars led those guys and the rest of a talented Buffaloes team 20-zip at the half, and they went on to win easily. It is said — believe it if you want — that the time between the end of the regular season and the bowl game allowed a number of BYU’s key players to heal from nagging injuries that had plagued them in losses to Kansas and ASU, that both top form and the talent truth returned to the Cougars, and they put it on display in beating Colorado.
Recruiting and developing the right players at BYU is what helped it to its impressive 11-2 record. Coaching and coordinating them properly boosted the entire endeavor to remarkable heights. Kalani Sitake has emphasized the importance of hauling in not just talented high school athletes and college transfers, but dudes who can either live by the school’s Honor Code standards or live around them by being sly enough not to get caught violating them.
OK, he didn’t say that last part, but …
“We want guys who want to be here,” Sitake said, underlining BYU’s religious slant without minimizing the significance of NIL inducements. Honor Code and all, BYU, like most programs completely outside the Cougars’ added layer of behavioral restrictions, those schools in the hunt to survive and thrive at the upper reaches of modern college football, get and use those financial incentives.
All of which brings us back to what Fehlberg said some 27 years ago.
At the time it seemed fantastical, almost delusional, but then everyone saw what happened for BYU all these years later, in 2024, as the Cougars showed themselves to be real contenders in the Big 12.
(Tribune File Photo) Former BYU Athletic Director Rondo Fehlberg.
“We’ll continue to recruit kids who show commitment to what we stand for,” said Fehlberg. “Sometimes those athletes don’t live up to the expectations they have for themselves or that we have for them. That doesn’t mean the standards should change, it means we should just help them. We can succeed at the highest levels and maintain the highest standards. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again. …”
It seemed as though the former AD was aided by some sort of clairvoyance when he also insisted there were and are gifted athletes — Latter-day Saints, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, etc. — who could put up with BYU’s peculiarities or embrace them, relative clean-livers all over the place who actually would want to or who could be nudged to ball out in a place like BYU. He never mentioned NIL payments because they didn’t exist — at least not legally — at the time.
“… Some of them are at Stanford, some at Texas A&M, some at Utah,” Fehlberg said. “We just have to get more of them here.”
Umm. The man was a visionary who saw BYU in 2024-25, way back in 1998. Tip of the cap to you, Rondo. You could see the future, namely that V could stand for both virtue and victory at BYU, (with a huge assist from NIL money), long before the rest of us did.
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