August 19, 2008
Oh Herbstreit…
Written by: John
Today I came across this post today titled “I Say Under-rated by Your System”. Before reading the post, I was already prepared to read a post by a BYU homer that’s disgruntled about the BCS system and the coverage on ESPN. While I won’t argue whether the post is by a BYU homer or not, I must admit that the post was well done and Herbstreit did do a horrible job trying to talk about BYU.
Here’s a quote from the blog post:
Herbstreit slammed the AP rankings in this ESPN piece as he preceded to give reasons why BYU is overrated and should not eve be talked about as a BCS bowl consideration until, at the earliest, week 9. He continues to point out that Fresno State is a better team then BYU, but even they shouldn’t be talked about as the next “Boise State” yet.
The thing that gets my panty hose all bunched up is that Herbstreit doesn’t want us even talking about BYU as a BCS contender until week 9. Seriously? Does he really think it shouldn’t be talked about? BYU has done a ton of good things to merit the discussion of the possibility as much as any other team.
Plus, if Herbstreit thinks that BYU is overrated, then how about he gives us some reasons why he thinks they’re overrated. The big problem is that Herbstreit doesn’t have any reasons since he doesn’t know much of anything about BYU. If he did, he could easily run off a list like the following:
-Inexperienced walk on secondary
-Haven’t been successful on road out of conference
-Losses/Injuries at Running Back
-Injury to leading wide receiver
-Injuries and graduating players at Linebacker
That’s just the start. If Kirk new anything about BYU he’d have no problem talking about these challenges, but all he knows is his BCS schools. I wish for once he’d just say that he really doesn’t know much about BYU and so he can’t give an honest opinion. Certainly that will never happen so we shouldn’t expect the commentary on ESPN to get any better when it comes to BYU.
Also, don’t assume that I’m down on BYU this year. Just call me a realist. Every year you could easily make a long list of challenges and concerns about every team. This year is no different. The above was a list of my fears. I could just as easily have listed my hopes:
-Crazy good offensive line
-Amazingly strong deffensive line
-Can you say Unga?
-A guy named Max
-Perfect schedule
When all’s said and done. This is going to be an exciting year to watch BYU. Just don’t expect ESPN analysts like Herbstreit to be able to analyze it.
If Herbstreit thinks that Fresno St. is better than BYU, why did he put BYU in the top 25 in his AP vote and not Fresno St.?? Sounds like Kirk is a two faced!
I agree wholeheartedly. I was going to point that out also, but I figured the blog post I linked to already did a good job of that.
It’s also interesting that after just talking about the top 5 teams and BCS/title contention he chose to say we shouldn’t discuss BYU. Both are conjecture. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a problem discussing who he thinks the national champion will be since that’s his job.
What BYU needs to do is put bigger teams on their schedule. Opening up against Northern Iowa just doesn’t make me feel that BYU is really that serious about wanting to make it to the BCS. Now I know that my facts will upset Cougar fans. I know that Hawaii got into the BCS last year and proved that the did not belong. Plus Cougar fans still live in the past. They still bring up that National championship back in 1984 which they don’t deserve, when you play poder puff schools and go undefeated and beat a 6-6 Michigan team which wasn’t that great of a Michigan team.
I have to agree that Herbstreit really should just keep his mouth shut more often. I wish more people would keep their mouths shut when they have no idea what they are talking about. Every school has its challenges, and every school has its “sure things”. The reality is that all of that can change with one play, or even with one slip on some ice or car accident on the way to practice. That is what is so great, and yet so annoying, about college football: even the most educated guess is usually wrong by the end of the year. At the tisk of stating the obvious, BYU had little choice but to schedule a 1-AA school. The team they were supposed to play bailed, and it was a last second need. I think BYU actually has a good schedule this year. How good you can never tell until the end of the season, which is when they should determine strength of schedule. A lot depends on how good Washington ends up being, and you can’t really count out UCLA either. Norm Chow is a genius, and every weekend can be upset weekend in college football.
Almost all of the big programs schedule Div 1 programs are scheduling a game like Northern Iowa. Just because you have one cupcake doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be considered for a BCS bowl game. Sometimes that’s all BYU can get and so they have to live with it. Plus scheduling is such an inexact science. Who knew a couple years ago when the schedules were made how good Washington and UCLA would be. They could be horrible or great. My guess is this year they’re going to be horrible and BYU will get screwed. Unfortunately, Holmoe couldn’t know how good they’d be a couple years ago.
That leaves us judging the merits of BYU on who they do play. An inexact science at best, but all we have.
The Non BCS schools are going to have to suffer through Hawaii getting slaughtered for a long time. Whatever benefits Utah and Boise State got for non-BCS schools was more than wiped out by Hawaii’s loss.
The question ramains whether BYU can have a BCS like season. I think it’s worth discussing even though Herbstreit is afraid to do it. My guess is that he’s afraid, because if he does he’ll make himself look stupid again since he doesn’t know almost anything about BYU.
I think that the potential is definately there. I am not really worried about the defense because Bronco always seems to find a way to make it work, and Jaime Hill has been a magician in my opinion.
I think the real question is will BYU live up to their potential. If they get into a shootout with someone like they did with Tulsa last year I think they are in trouble. On the other hand if they can play within the system and do their job I don’t think anyone on the schedule can beat them.
The one unknown every year is the Utah game. Anyone that looks back at the history knows that anything can happen in that game no matter how good either team is. I would love to see both teams get there undefeated, though I think it is unlikely. As much as I hate Utah, their success simply makes BYU look better when they beat the, and makes the conference as a whole look better.
The reality is that if BYU wants to be a consistent national presence, and ever even dream of winning a national title again, they have to somehow get into a BCS conference. In some ways I don’t want that to happen because I prefer being the party crasher, but it would make recruiting easier, and it would eliminate the question of scheduling weak teams.