When Texas and Oklahoma announced their decision to leave the Big 12 a few years back, there was a lot to worry about. First off, I wasn’t sure if the Big 12 would even survive and if it did, I knew the conference would have to add a few new members.
Thankfully, then-commissioner Bob Bowlsby acted quickly and made the decision to add four new schools with BYU, Houston, UCF, and Cincinnati. Two years later, the conference would welcome in another four schools with Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah.As great as all these additions were, the one thing many worried about was brand recognition. You can say what you want about Texas and Oklahoma but they were two national brands and bluebloods of college football. As much as we all didn’t like them, they brought eyeballs to the Big 12.
BYU Athletics is Built to Last
But I do feel like many of us (including myself) are overlooking one current Big 12 school when it comes to that, BYU. No other school in the Big 12 right now has a fan base like BYU does. Why? Because they are a national brand. From coast to coast and even overseas, many are familiar with those three blue letters.
When you look at the history of college football itself, you can’t tell it without at least one mention of BYU. Just look at some of the quarterbacks that have come through Provo: Jim McMahon, Steve Young, Ty Detmer, Robbie Bosco, Marc Wilson, Zach Wilson, Taysom Hill, Max Hall, John Beck, Gary Sheide, and the list goes on and on. In fact, no other school has more Sammy Baugh award winners than BYU (7).As great as those quarterbacks have been, it’s also been over 20 years since BYU has had a five-star quarterback. You would have to go all the way back to the 2002 class when the Cougars signed Ben Olson out of Montana. As excited as people were to get Ben back at the time, he never played for BYU.
He ended up redshirting his freshman season (2002) before going on a two-year mission trip. And when he came back for 2005, Olson transferred to UCLA. But that twenty-plus year drought is official over.
Welcome, Ryder Lyons
Earlier this week five-star quarterback prospect Ryder Lyons out of Folsom, California made his commitment to BYU. He chose BYU over Oregon, USC, Michigan, Ohio State, Ole Miss, and just about every other school in the country.
Lyons is the No. 1 rated quarterback in the state of California according to 247Sports and is ranked as a Top 5 quarterback and as well as being a top twenty player nationally.BYU has had plenty of success over the years, but the problem is that they weren’t getting an opportunity to show what they are capable of nationally. After years of being in the Mountain West and as an Independent, people viewed them differently.
But those days are long gone because the Cougars are in a power conference with the Big 12. In just their second season in the conference, they won ten games in the regular season and finished 7-2 in Big 12 play. BYU is a national brand in a conference that goes across four time zones.
BYU has always been a blueblood, they just needed the right stage to show it and what better stage to show the country than right here in the Big 12?
