Any team, any time, any place. pic.twitter.com/Rs9ihEGfA8
— BYU FOOTBALL (@BYUfootball) November 21, 2020
Took less than 24 hours for BYU to crush their own playoff hopes, and they didn’t even have to lose a game to do it.
Media dunking on BYU.
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Go back in time to November 2004, and ask Urban Meyer if he’s willing to play Auburn for a shot at USC in the title game. Tell him if he loses, it will cost his team their Fiesta Bowl birth. What does Urban say? I think I know.
Now, ask him if he’ll take the same deal but will play some unranked P5 team instead of Auburn. He won’t even blink before signing. What’s the difference? He knew he had a truly good team.
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This is silly. Does Urban still not blink if he’s told he’s got to prepare (including paying travel expenses) for the game and that Auburn (or anyone else) has the right to cancel the game the Thursday before it is supposed to happen - and he’ll still be out the expenses incurred?
Does he still take that game if the AD tells him that due to a pandemic the athletic dept is short on cash and is cutting expenses including laying off people as a result - and are looking at fundraising to make up the shortfall so they don’t have to cut sports? (Clemson is saying the game FSU just cancelled against them is going to cost them $250K-$275K).
And does he still take that game if chances of it NOT being cancelled are essentially a Floyd Christmas chance?
Let’s be honest - there’s no way ASU is going to be ready to play this weekend - even pushing the game until Sunday. They can’t even PRACTICE before Friday. Your game with ASU is as good as done - and your coaches would be dumb to not be preparing for a game vs Washington (who is also already preparing for Utah).
Sure - BYU could’ve accepted the game. But with the conditions in place and knowing what it would take for the game to actually happen - they would be dumb to accept those terms. And as competitive as he is, Urban isn’t dumb. No way he takes that game.
He absolutely would have accepted that game under those conditions, and he’d have won it too.
BYU was just handed an opportunity to play a P5 team, and they chose to wait for the playoff rankings. It’s a reasonable/strategic decision, but it does suggest less than full confidence in their own team’s ranking.
I’ve seen a lot of excuses from BYU fans, but none of them hold up. If you want a game with UW, you say yes immediately, you practice, and you hope the game happens. If it doesn’t happen, you haven’t lost a thing by practicing. Also, if it doesn’t happen, BYU gets to say, “Hey, we tried, but they backed out.” Which sounds a lot better than “We first wanted to see if they’d let us in a NY6 game without playing anyone.”
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Point 1: If it’s during a pandemic, he does the best he can, so he prepares for UW knowing it may get cancelled.
Point 2: I don’t know how to respond to this without offending a lot of people, but their school has over 100 billion in the bank…they don’t need money. Now or ever.
Point 3: BYU is STUPID to not take the game. If it plays, they go out prepared and show they are a top10 team If it is cancelled, they get to be the victim, which they love. Win/win.
And yeah, if Urban’s school had over 100 billion dollars and had a chance to show they belong in the playoffs even if it gets cancelled, he’d take that game.
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BYU simply made a mistake. I think they realize that now. But at the time, they were thinking about protecting that ranking and that NY6 game.
You are right that money, travel, practice, etc, had nothing to do with this.
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Nailed that.
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Hmmm. Welcome to the board. You joined 1 hour ago and came straight here to defend BYU. Please stick around, we need to see the BYU fan perspective!
But you do admit, don’t you, that (1) BYU wants to preserve its undefeated status so it has an argument for inclusion in a NY6 bowl? and (2) that’s why they don’t want to play Washington, even though they announced that they’d play anyone?
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Disagree.
Also, Rocker, you should shut the board down during a game and force people to use the chat. There were 1000 new threads started during the game, most of them reactions to single plays or calls for a certain coach’s head.
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I left off the 
.
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Trick is for BYU, the best scenario is they play and beat Washington (then have Washington win the PAC12) and with a few upsets happening in the right places (need as few undefeated teams from power conferences as possible), they get a playoff spot. Of course playing and losing to Washington ends any talk of playing on New Year’s Day.
One wrinkle is it sounds like Washington wanted to keep alive the chance of a Pac12 games against Utah (in case ASU can’t go) and wanted a BYU game as a backup plan. For BYU it’s sort of like if a guy asks out his first choice for the school dance and hasn’t had a response yet, so he asks a second girl if she’ll go with him IF the first girl says no.
Personally - I think that unless they have other plans, then sure, take the game.
At the same time - I don’t blame them for not. I can’t see keeping players at school through Thanksgiving to practice for a game that has absolutely no shot of happening. Doesn’t make sense. You guys don’t actually believe that ASU game is going to happen, do you? If you do - I’ve got some ocean front property in southern Utah I’d love to sell you…
Bottom line - UW is going to be playing you guys, and there is less 1% chance BYU was ever going to play UW even if a contract was signed.
That said - no one wants to be the backup plan with the knowledge that the game could be cancelled at any moment if/when another offer comes along. You can say Urban would take it - but we’re talking about a man with a great deal of pride. No way he agrees to getting dressed up for the prom and hoping for a call with the knowledge that it isn’t coming. No way.
The tweet that started this firestorm was disingenuous from the start. The game was never going to happen under the conditions given. So why should BYU play the dating game with UW? Like I said - I probably would’ve taken it. But I don’t blame BYU/Holmoe for saying no thanks - and looking for a scenario that benefits both teams in the equation.
The PAC12 has to take care of its own - I get it. But it isn’t BYU’s responsibility to take care of the PAC12.
That’s exactly the situation - but it wasn’t Washington’s doing, it was the PAC12’s with the conditions they set on scheduling OOC games. The conditions put in place make scheduling extremely unlikely. Like I said - disingenuous.
Kind of like when Gavin Newsome said he wasn’t keeping the Cali schools from playing football. He was just setting up some conditions they would have to follow. Which happened to include not having a group larger than 12 people at the practice. Yeah - you tell me how you prepare a football team to play without ever having more than 12 people there. I can see teams being able to practice a lot of things by position group - but limited to 12 you can’t even do 7 on 7 passing drills or running drills with the OL, RB’s, QB’s, and DL. You can do some prep - but you’ll never be ready for a game if you haven’t had a full offense line up against a full defense.
I’m confident the ASU game will be played.
I heard an interview with Herm Edwards today and he said with the game being moved back a day they are in good, but not great shape to start practicing mid week. They might only be down a handful of players come Sunday
It absolutely could have happened. And BYU said no. UW did nothing wrong here. The Pac-12 did nothing wrong here. There was no real cost for BYU to agree to play, but they didn’t want to risk their NY6 bowl. That’s fine, but they shouldn’t get all defensive and angry when people call them out on it.
Edit: BYU fans are complaining about these “unreasonable” conditions…but every P5 team in the nation is holding itself to an even higher standard.
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You keep saying Urban wouldn’t take it…I disagree. BYU has no leverage here. Utah had no leverage when Urban was there. You do whatever you can…kind of like how rumors were BYU demanded to be full members of the Big 12 and Utah bought their way in with reduced revenues for years after joining.
One school was willing to do whatever it took to get into P5/BCS/etc. The other isn’t. As Jon Wilner said so succinctly when describing BYU, “And oh-by-the-way that refusal to compromise is at the core of our ethos and why no Power Five wants us. But we’ll continue to play the vicitim card and just hope that nobody notices.”
BYU won’t “do what it takes” to succeed how their fans want them to. Utah is/was willing to do so. And look at where the two programs are now. One program has left the other one way behind in it’s wake.
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This makes no sense. Your analogies don’t match, you are trying to bring your politics into this to justify BYU and it doesn’t work. There is nothing preventing BYU from being ready to play UW on Saturday or Sunday except for BYU.
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This was nothing more than a rumor, though. The Big 12 never invited BYU.
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