Let's just get this out of the way

[Ygridiron4ever]

I'll be among the first to say it this year: Now that we have our first loss, I kind of wish we belonged to a conference.

[Fido]

So which conference do you wish BYU was in? The one who just had a conference member lose to Howard (FCS)?

[byufan4ever]

I think the idea is that with a conference and an early season loss you still have something to play for.

[byufan4ever]

And I'm not sure that we belong in a Power 5 conference...

[ABYUFAN]

BYU has as much to play for now as it did on Friday. This can be a great year or an aweful one, but the joy of sport is in the games themselves. My son has all of his cross country medals stuffed away somewhere - but his race bibs plastered all over his wall.

[KingCoug]

And I'm not sure that we belong in a Power 5 conference...

Sure we do. Look at some teams currently in P5 conferences: Washington St, Oregon St, Iowa St, Kansas, Indiana, Rutgers, Purdue, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Duke, etc. BYU football can match up with these "P5-lites" most of the time. And we may be able to beat the mid-tier teams occasionally. But we'd probably never be in contention against the P5 elites.

[nuk13]

I agree with Byufan and Ygridion. I enjoyed BYU football much better when we were in the conferences, mainly because we were competitive. (I enjoyed the bowl game with Wyoming) We are not competitive now at least with the higher echelon teams we are playing. I don't like saying it but if the Y is going to play LSU, Utah and teams like that we need to get better coaches and better talent although I have nothing against those we have personally. That will take more money than we are now spending. I don't know if the general authorities are willing to do this and I don't blame them if they don't. There are more important things to spend tithes and offerings on. I don't know about donors but at this point they haven't put us up there. Also, the Honor Code is not going to change, at least enough to make a difference.

The Utes must be getting a lot of money from the tax payers. I don't like there but if I did I would protest sending them the tax dollars.

I also wonder why more top LDS talent doesn't come to BYU. Is it money?

I don't expect most of you to agree but I'll say this, it is not fun seeing my team getting kicked around and a coach saying he only used part of what they had to do so. I hope for change and I'm willing to listen to what you think that might be.

[YNot]

I'll take fan base overreactions for 100, Alex.

Why are we so surprised that we were skunked by LSU? We knew that we would need an exceptional performance to score more than 13 points - unless the defense had some key takeaways or there was an amazing special teams play.

Remember the Michigan game? Just 2 years ago. 31-0. 105 yards of total offense Ring a bell? 39 minutes to 21 minutes of ball control for the Wolverines.

We went on to win 9 games that year, including some exciting wins over Nebraska, Boise St., Cincinnati, SJSU, and ECU - all close, competitive, and exciting games. Received an invite to play a PAC team in the Las Vegas bowl....

..same quarterback...could still be a similar storyline.

[YNot]

I actually like independence. Way better opponents than the MWC alternative. Great games in great venues.

The ultimate reward for a successful MWC championship season is the hope for a chance to play someone like LSU, Wisconsin, Michigan St., or USC in a big bowl game. That's IF you win the conference and can beat out the other G5 champs in the beauty contest.

Independent BYU gets these games during the regular season. We just played LSU - was supposed to be a more neutral site, but still. And we get Wisconsin at home in two weeks! USC and Michigan St. come to Provo soon too.

Speaking of bowls, this is easily the biggest complaint about independence. I wish we could affiliate with the AAC for the bowl lineup. I think there's a chance that we could help the AAC grab the Las Vegas Bowl versus a PAC school and keep the Armed Forces (v. B1G/B12) and Hawaii (v. MWC) bowls as annual AAC/BYU bowls. Throw in some more AAC opponents to fill out future October and November schedules - and independent life would be great. SMU and Houston would be great games on the schedule.

[lawngnome]

I agree with Byufan and Ygridion. I enjoyed BYU football much better when we were in the conferences, mainly because we were competitive. (I enjoyed the bowl game with Wyoming) We are not competitive now at least with the higher echelon teams we are playing. I don't like saying it but if the Y is going to play LSU, Utah and teams like that we need to get better coaches and better talent although I have nothing against those we have personally. That will take more money than we are now spending. I don't know if the general authorities are willing to do this and I don't blame them if they don't. There are more important things to spend tithes and offerings on. I don't know about donors but at this point they haven't put us up there. Also, the Honor Code is not going to change, at least enough to make a difference.

The Utes must be getting a lot of money from the tax payers. I don't like there but if I did I would protest sending them the tax dollars.

I also wonder why more top LDS talent doesn't come to BYU. Is it money?

I don't expect most of you to agree but I'll say this, it is not fun seeing my team getting kicked around and a coach saying he only used part of what they had to do so. I hope for change and I'm willing to listen to what you think that might be.

As the money part is concerned, the currently posted revenue vs. expense report for the for 2016 was 79.4 Million dollars in revenue and 78.9 Million in expenditures. I do believe that is for the ENTIRE athletics department... Does anyone know how that compares to ?