As a church, it’s our right to have a code/policy prohibiting coffee consumption. It’s NOT our right to discriminate against coffee drinkers. In the context of an academic institution, it’s a tricky line to walk. I do think some of this stuff is heating up.

But I happen to believe that BYU SHOULDN’T be allowed in the Big12. It’s not our constitutional right to compete in a particular sports conference, if we have (from the secular viewpoint) discriminatory policies. This is the same reason that BYU has to comply with Title IX and have women’s teams. I just think the LGBTQ issues are hot/current and not completely settled – – but make no mistake about it, they will be. And when they are, I speculate (like others) that BYU’s interest in Div I sports in general will likely wane.

And you know what folks? That’s ok. It may be heretical to say on this post, but football has little eternal significance. :)

While I won’t deny I’ve been disappointed in a lot of play, especially from Taysom and the WRs, we’re only one game off what I expected. We have a very hard schedule and an entirely new coaching staff. I also thought Taysom wouldn’t do as well given all the wear on his body. I just didn’t expect some of the other problems we had. (Line at the beginning of the year, WRs all season – although I confess I was worried about the secondary during summer when everyone was telling me they’d be great)

Anyway, I do think fans expect a bit much of BYU. It’s never done better than about .500 with Power 5 teams. If it were to get into a conference there’d be a few years of adjustment. The one thing I think many of us are excited about though is better recruiting than we’ve had in a while. That’ll take time of course. And we won’t do as well as if we were in the Big 12. But I do think the program is improving. The fact so many games this year despite injuries and weak play were so close says a lot about the team. Had we experienced coaches and players recruited specifically for the style of play they want and this year easily could have been a 11-1 seasons.

Would the political issue have impacted BYU getting into the conference if it had expanded? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But expansion was never really intended.

But I do not doubt that some LGBT activists would love to destroy BYU. The culture war is just warming up.

Part of the problem is that there tends to be a mindset at both Texas and Oklahoma that those two teams shouldn’t really have competition. (Thinking of here Barry Switzer’s comments about expansion this year and saying it was a mistake to let TCU in because it diluted Texas and Oklahoma)

My guess is that we’re going to move to 16 team conferences with playoffs in the near future. The only question is when it happens and what precipitates the move. My guess is that declining TV revenues will be the big driver and that it’ll happen prior to 2024 and potentially as early as 2020. ESPN in particular is starting to hurt financially. College basketball and football is the obvious place to squeeze.

The Big 12 sure looks bad after all this though.

Given everything I’ve read on the issue, I personally don’t think BYU’s Honor Code or Sunday play policy were deal breakers, and, in fact, I don’t think a lack of consensus on the two teams to invite was the issue at all. I lay blame at the feet of ESPN and Fox who were apparently able to either kick in some more cash or threaten the Big XII with less favorable contract terms once the TV deal expires (though I personally think that the records TV deals we’re seeing now are about to become costly dinosaurs as more people cut the cord so it may have been something of an empty threat). Had BYU been paired with another P5 school (Louisville for example), that might have worked, but no one in the any of the other P5 would even contemplate coming to the Big XII right now. The time for such horse trading was in 2010. Texas’s AD at the time failed to support expansion, and, here we are.

For BYU, it appears that the problem here is a mix of geography (the Big XII already has one geographical outlier in West Virginia. Who wants another one in the “wrong” direction?), lack of national prestige (yes there are lots of Mormons in the U.S., but non-Mormons aren’t going to watch BYU-Okahoma State), and changing opinions on same-sex issues. I feel bad for BYU fans, and for people who might have been introduced to the Gospel through BYU’s inclusion, though I’m willing to be the Lord has a backup plan or two for them.