BYU Football Recruiting: The Curious Case of Phil Ford
by Brett Hein on May 14, 2012 10:00 AM PDT
in Football Recruiting
Who is Phil Ford? The 6-6, 330-pound offensive lineman sent out some highly interesting tweets for BYU fans. Ford is a Kansas commit, but just redshirted at Iowa Western Community College after being unable to qualify academically. Since that time, Ford made a huge life decision that has him re-thinking his college destination:
7 commentsRiley Nelson channels his inner Terry Tate
Football Season Rankings: 35-31
by Adam Mangum on May 9, 2012 1:56 PM PDT
in BYU Football
In Part 2 of our football season rankings, it's not the worst seasons, but they're pretty bad. This group of five somehow missed Gary Crowton, but it has Bronco's two worst seasons and three forgettable (for the most part) LaVell seasons.
35. 1993
34. 1975
33. 2010
32. 1973
31. 2005
Read the season details below the jump. Click here to get an explanation of my methodology. Also check out Part 1: the worst five seasons in the past 40 years.
Podcast 65: The WCC Commish and Greg Wrubell
by Adam Mangum on May 7, 2012 8:16 PM PDT
in Rise & Shout Podcast
Two special guests join Adam to discuss aspects of BYU's current athletic landscape. The first guest is Jamie Zaninovich, commissioner of the West Coast Conference. We chat about BYU's first season in the conference, what BYU brings to the conference, and whether he loses sleep worrying about BYU leaving. The voice of Cougars, KSL's Greg Wrubell, returns to the podcast for a record-breaking 8th time (if you don't count Matt's 60 appearances) to discuss his April 29th manifesto (his wife's word) entitled "Boldly Indpendent." Adam tries poorly to play devil's advocate, but mainly agrees with Greg about everything. Listen to the podcast here (below the jump), download early and often at iTunes, and follow us on Twitter (@byu_riseshout).
Podcast 64: Playoffs, the NFL Draft, Viva Independencia
by Adam Mangum on May 3, 2012 8:04 PM PDT
in Rise & Shout Podcast
In another exciting R&S Podcast, Matt returns to match wits with Adam in what we call episode 64. They discuss the potential of a 4-team football playoff and what that means for BYU and the sport. They debate Geoff's recent piece about BYU and the NFL draft. And finally, they talk the long-term viability of football independence and wax philosophical. Throw in some obligatory baseball talk and absolute nonsense, and the R&S Podcast has returned in full form. Listen to us here (below the jump), download us on iTunes, and follow us on Twitter (@byu_riseshout).
Football Season Rankings: 40-36
by Adam Mangum on May 3, 2012 3:54 PM PDT
in BYU Football
In Part 1 of our football season rankings, I start with the bottom, the worst five seasons of the past 40 years. This includes two of Gary Crowton's mostly miserable four seasons at the helm, as well as LaVell's three worst seasons.
40. 2002
39. 1972
38. 1997
37. 2003
36. 2000
Read the gory details below. Click here to get an explanation of my methodology.
BYU @ Boise State | Thurs 9/20 on ESPN
ESPN has bought the rights to 4 Mountain West games being played in MW stadiums, including BYU's trip to Boise. Puts BYU on a short week after playing Utah.
Ranking 40 Years of BYU Football
by Adam Mangum on May 1, 2012 12:28 PM PDT
in BYU Football
Over the next several weeks, I'm going to reveal my rankings of the past 40 BYU football seasons (since 1972); call it the modern era of BYU football (or since LaVell). I did a similar thing last year, ranking every QB season since 1974.
This is a mix of qualitative and quantitative. I mainly considered the following:
- Winning. As Charlie Sheen might say, it's about winning.
- Quality. I used several things to measure this, including Sports-Reference.com's SRS* rating, which takes into account strength of schedule and average point differentiation. I also looked at opponents winning percentage and point differentials to get a good feel for how good each team really was.
- Impact. Teams got bonus points (and by points, I mean consideration in my head) for things like playing in a major bowl, being ranked highly, etc.
- Versus. If all else failed, I did the ridiculous mental exercise of pitting the two teams against each other deciding who would win.
As I mentioned, this is a highly qualitative exercise. Readers will likely disagree with many of my rankings, which is really the point.
I also need to give credit to the aforementioned Sports-Reference.com and CougarStats.com for being invaluable resources as I did my research.
The first ranking piece will come out on Thursday, the 5 worst BYU teams over the past 40 years. Any thoughts on the worst 5 teams of the past 40 years?
* For a full explanation, check out the Sports-Reference college football glossary. You could also check out BYU's team page on that site. Terrific stuff.
