So, were expectations piled too high?
This is an interesting time in November, covering a BYU football team favored to go 9-1 this Saturday in the final home game of the season.
The energy from many fans who follow the Cougars is comparable to that 6-6 team in LaVell Edwards last year in 2000. Some are disappointed, others are frustrated, other followers I’ve talked to and traded correspondence with are simply let down and view the team as a failure this season.
Why?
I’d put it on unrealistic expectations. The “Quest for Perfection” had a lot to do with it. But mainly I blame the way college football is hyped these days with the BCS. Those conferences with automatic BCS berths are on one playing field, those who are on the outside, play by a different set of rules. Any outsider, with aspirations to break into the BCS, if they have a loss, and most do, are let down because they’ve tripped over a chance to make it to one of those bigger bowl games.
With the insiders, a USC or Florida can lose games to unranked teams (Oregon State and Mississippi) and still make the big money bowl.
Thus, one-loss seasons by outsiders can be viewed as failure. Now, that is whacked. If Utah loses to TCU tonight, some will feel Utah failed because they?ll drop out of BCS consideration and a Top 10 ranking. And that?s whacked.
It’s taken a ton of energy and work by BYU players to right themselves in practices leading up to games with UNLV and CSU to find the proper motivation to do things right and get back on track after the loss at TCU.
That’s not good, if you are 8-1 and ranked. But is human nature in the arena that?s been created by the BCS.
TCU coach Gary Patterson discussed preseason expectations this week and emphasized how big a deal it was not to pile up more than players can handle back in August. He loves it when he’s picked to finish third, like this year, or sixth, like a previous preseason poll. He can get his teeth in to that and use it for motivation. When you are expected to win, predicted to win, and there’s talk of being a BCS buster in August, he says it is unreasonable, the pressure is tremendous, and programs don’t always handle that very well.
It was like he was talking directly about BYU.
“Personally, I’d rather have a chip on my shoulder than be a front runner,” said Patterson. “I feel we are the underdog playing at Utah. I think the Oklahoma game helped us. I don?t worry about what people say in August. What people say in August can hurt kids. When you build up a team to be better than they are, it’s like the stock market, it can crash.”
It’s tough to make it come true, to make it happen, he said.
Patterson said he likes to set a goal of winning 10 games – and doing it for his seniors. He massages that idea and works it. It is a reasonable goal and if accomplished, his team will then have likely have won a conference championship, will be ranked, and likely in a position to get other rewards such as a BCS bowl game. But he does not talk conference championship, undefeated and BCS.
Patterson is as upset over the BCS as anybody. “They say we won’t belong, and then you try and get those teams to play us, BYU, Utah or Air Force on a home and home and they simply won’t do it. Go figure, he says.
Bronco Mendenhall’s teams are 11-1 in November. There is a chance he could enhance that to an impressive record for the month if BYU wins out.
Mendenhall said his practice structure and managing injuries is a key, so is having an identity, knowing who his team is so the staff is not out fishing for new ideas, is another key.
“I think all those things combined are the reason we’ve been so successful,” said Mendenhall.
Criticism of his team after the TCU loss, that’s continued through wins over UNLV and CSU?
Mendenhall said it is part of the success he’s had and expectations.
“When you’ve gone 11-2 and 11-2, there’s not much room for improvement. I’ve learned by being booed during the 15th straight win at home that this is never going to be where I’m going to be the most popular guy and nor do I intend to be. My No. 1 goal is to get lessons over to these kids that they need to learn and to be a good steward over the program. I love to coach and the rest is conditioning.
“It’s like I keep mentioning, and many people take offense to it, but this season is a great example of it, that it’s all conditional. My wife and I and my family will never expect it to be otherwise. We’ll just do the best we can.”
So, it is an interesting perspective going around right now. I’ve covered BYU football for three decades and I don’t think I’ve encountered a season like this with this kind of pulse of some fans over a team that is expected to be 9-1 come Saturday.
It’s a phenomena, an interesting study and probably the natural order of things when you consider the BCS.
Here’s a line to an ESPN magazine blogger who lists the BYU-TCU game as one of the top vengeance games of 2008.