In LaVell Edwards's 18 years of coaching before getting the head coaching job at BYU, he only had 4 winning seasons. About being offered the job at BYU he said, "That shows you how bad the job was." He figured he would get fired soon enough anyways because that's how it worked with the coaches who preceded him. He decided if he was going to get fired anyways he might as well try something different, something like a pass first offense. "Looking back on it, we weren't trying to reinvent the game; we were simply trying to find a way to win football games." he said.
Well, LaVell reinvented football. By the time he had finished his 28 years as head coach at BYU, LaVell had won 257 career victories (6th most all-time NCAA Div-1A victories), 1979 & 1984 National Coach of the Year, 1984 National Championship, 17 straight bowl games from 1978-1994, and 22 bowl games; his players had won one Heisman, two Outland, and seven Sammy Baugh Trophies, as well as four Davey O'Brien Awards. Cougar Stadium was renamed LaVell Edwards Stadium in 2000 and he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004, with five former players joining him. Of his 137 former players to be selected in the NFL draft, 57 of them have made Super Bowl Appearances.