Were 1986-88 bad seasons?

1986, 1987, and 1988 have gone down in BYU history as "down years" for the football program.



A fresh look at these seasons, 25 years later, reveals that "down years" isn't exactly the best way to describe them.



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I don't know. When you're used to 11 wins and less than 2 losses each year, 8 and 9-win seasons are down years. If BYU goes 8-5 this year, will anyone say it's ok because hey, Matt Reynolds won the Outland award?

This artile made me think about BYU's current situation.



With independence I think we as fans will need to recalibrate what is a successful season. In the recent past, 10 wins seemed to be not only the expectation, but a reasonable one. Now it sounds like we are going to see a steady diet of H/H/N series with top notch programs. While that sounds exciting the reality is more often than not we're going to get our brains beat out by such programs.



I think 8 to 9 wins a season will make for a good season while 10 win seasons will come few and far between like 12 win seasons do now.

When you've won the last 10 conference titles and then don't win one for three years, that's a period of "down years."



When you win 35 games in the previous three years and have six 10-win seasons in the previous seven seasons and then don't have any 10-win seasons for three years, that's a period of "down years."



When you have three straight years of throwing fro more than 4100 yards and rushing for nearly 1700 yards and scoring more than 400 points and then see dramatic drops in nearly every one of those categories the next three years, that's a period of "down years."



They were down years. BYU won or shared EVERY WAC title from 1976 to 1993 except for one three year period, 1986-1988. That's a down period. From 1976-1985 BYU lost seven conference games. From 1986-1988 BYU lost 6 conference games.



Sorry, 86-88 were down years based on where BYU was both immediately before and after this period.

I was reading SpiffCoug's post & in my mind, it took on the cadence of the old Jeff Foxworthy "you might be a redneck" bit.

Florwood wrote:
I don't know. When you're used to 11 wins and less than 2 losses each year, 8 and 9-win seasons are down years. If BYU goes 8-5 this year, will anyone say it's ok because hey, Matt Reynolds won the Outland award?

How different, really, is 8-5 with an Outland Trophy winner (1986), and 8-4 with a WAC championship (1982)?



Overall record about the same, both the Outland Trophy and the WAC championship are nice accomplishments. Does the WAC championship really mean that much more?



No one is saying 8-5 has to be accepted as okay, but when you look at the three "Crowton years" can you group 86-88 with them?

SpiffCoug wrote:
They were down years. BYU won or shared EVERY WAC title from 1976 to 1993 except for one three year period, 1986-1988. That's a down period. From 1976-1985 BYU lost seven conference games. From 1986-1988 BYU lost 6 conference games.

So to you the WAC Championship in 1992, another 8-5 season, makes a significant difference between 8-5 in 86 (or an even better 9-4 in 87 and 88)?



Or even worse, the 6-6 record in 1993, with ugly losses to UCLA, Notre Dame, Utah State, and Utah, is validated because BYU caught enough breaks to tie for the conference championship and end up in the Holiday Bowl?

86-88 were "down" years, however they were not "bad" seasons. You have the thread title differing from your initial statement. Yes, like Spiff said, they are down years when compared to years before and years after. However, they were not bad seasons like the stretch from 2002-2004.

Y12 wrote:

They were down years. BYU won or shared EVERY WAC title from 1976 to 1993 except for one three year period, 1986-1988. That's a down period. From 1976-1985 BYU lost seven conference games. From 1986-1988 BYU lost 6 conference games.

So to you the WAC Championship in 1992, another 8-5 season, makes a significant difference between 8-5 in 86 (or an even better 9-4 in 87 and 88)?



Or even worse, the 6-6 record in 1993, with ugly losses to UCLA, Notre Dame, Utah State, and Utah, is validated because BYU caught enough breaks to tie for the conference championship and end up in the Holiday Bowl?

Yes, because we have banners from those years that we didn't have in the 86-88 period. BYU football has these eras:

Pre-1972: Pre-Lavell, BYU football may as well not have existed. (All Down Years)

1972-1975: Lavell getting his feet wet (Mostly Down Years)

1976-1985: The Glory Years

1986-1988: The Wait, We're Not Winning the WAC Years?! (Down Years)

1989-1991: The Ty Detmer!! Years

1992-1995: The Where Did Ty Detmer Go?! Years (Down Years)

1996: The We Won 14 Games?! Year

1997-2000: The Lavell Sure Looks Tired Years (Down Years)

2001: The Look At Our Awesome Offense (At Least With a Healthy Luke Staley)!! Year

2002-2004: The Can Things Get Any Worse Years (Down Years)

2005-Present: The Bronco Mendenhall Years

SpiffCoug wrote:

SpiffCoug wrote:
They were down years. BYU won or shared EVERY WAC title from 1976 to 1993 except for one three year period, 1986-1988. That's a down period. From 1976-1985 BYU lost seven conference games. From 1986-1988 BYU lost 6 conference games.

So to you the WAC Championship in 1992, another 8-5 season, makes a significant difference between 8-5 in 86 (or an even better 9-4 in 87 and 88)?



Or even worse, the 6-6 record in 1993, with ugly losses to UCLA, Notre Dame, Utah State, and Utah, is validated because BYU caught enough breaks to tie for the conference championship and end up in the Holiday Bowl?

Yes, because we have banners from those years that we didn't have in the 86-88 period. BYU football has these eras:

Pre-1972: Pre-Lavell, BYU football may as well not have existed. (All Down Years)

1972-1975: Lavell getting his feet wet (Mostly Down Years)

1976-1985: The Glory Years

1986-1988: The Wait, We're Not Winning the WAC Years?! (Down Years)

1989-1991: The Ty Detmer!! Years

1992-1995: The Where Did Ty Detmer Go?! Years (Down Years)

1996: The We Won 14 Games?! Year

1997-2000: The Lavell Sure Looks Tired Years (Down Years)

2001: The Look At Our Awesome Offense (At Least With a Healthy Luke Staley)!! Year

2002-2004: The Can Things Get Any Worse Years (Down Years)

2005-Present: The Bronco Mendenhall Years

I like it, but I would elaborate 2005-Present like so:

2005: Bronco figuring it out (ho-hum year--up from Crowton, but still not great)

2006-10: BYU Glory Returns Under Bronco

2011: So-Much-For-The-Flywheel-Analogy Year

2012-??: Bronco Returns to the helm

snoscythe wrote:
I like it, but I would elaborate 2005-Present like so:

2005: The Bronco figuring it out (ho-hum year--up from Crowton, but still not great)Years

2006-10: TheBYU Glory Returns Under BroncoYears

2011: TheSo-Much-For-The-Flywheel-Analogy Years

2012-??: TheBronco Returns to the helmYears

To keep with the pattern, I fixed your years.

mormonrasta wrote:
This artile made me think about BYU's current situation.



With independence I think we as fans will need to recalibrate what is a successful season. In the recent past, 10 wins seemed to be not only the expectation, but a reasonable one. Now it sounds like we are going to see a steady diet of H/H/N series with top notch programs. While that sounds exciting the reality is more often than not we're going to get our brains beat out by such programs.



I think 8 to 9 wins a season will make for a good season while 10 win seasons will come few and far between like 12 win seasons do now.

i think there's merit to your analysis. If Edwards were still the head coach, I'd agree with you. I think Bronco is much more competitive than Edwards showed and will view the schedule as a challenge for him and his band of brothers and will have more Oklahoma/Oregon games than Florida State games. He has the staff of his choice, he learned a lot about coaching DBs from Hill, and has a veteran offense to help ease in a rookie (somewhat rookie) offensive coordinator. With his coaching the defense, this team will shock teams this season and in seasons to come.



I think 8 wins will be a decent year. 9-10 will be a good and satisfying year. 11 wins will be a great year and 12-13 wins will be exceptional. Bronco will have exceptional seasons (plural) before he retires from coaching at BYU.

CougarPeasant wrote:

This artile made me think about BYU's current situation.



With independence I think we as fans will need to recalibrate what is a successful season. In the recent past, 10 wins seemed to be not only the expectation, but a reasonable one. Now it sounds like we are going to see a steady diet of H/H/N series with top notch programs. While that sounds exciting the reality is more often than not we're going to get our brains beat out by such programs.



I think 8 to 9 wins a season will make for a good season while 10 win seasons will come few and far between like 12 win seasons do now.

i think there's merit to your analysis. If Edwards were still the head coach, I'd agree with you. I think Bronco is much more competitive than Edwards showed and will view the schedule as a challenge for him and his band of brothers and will have more Oklahoma/Oregon games than Florida State games. He has the staff of his choice, he learned a lot about coaching DBs from Hill, and has a veteran offense to help ease in a rookie (somewhat rookie) offensive coordinator. With his coaching the defense, this team will shock teams this season and in seasons to come.



I think 8 wins will be a decent year. 9-10 will be a good and satisfying year. 11 wins will be a great year and 12-13 wins will be exceptional. Bronco will have exceptional seasons (plural) before he retires from coaching at BYU.

What you say is true. I shouldn't discount Bronco.

Were 1986 - 88 down years?



Well, I don't know...what kind of a QB was Sean Covey compared to Wilson, McMahon, Young, Bosco and Detmer?



Hmmmm.........



Ya, I'd have to say 86-88 were down years.

SpiffCoug wrote:

Yes, because we have banners from those years that we didn't have in the 86-88 period. BYU football has these eras:

Pre-1972: Pre-Lavell, BYU football may as well not have existed. (All Down Years)

1972-1975: Lavell getting his feet wet (Mostly Down Years)

1976-1985: The Glory Years

1986-1988: The Wait, We're Not Winning the WAC Years?! (Down Years)

1989-1991: The Ty Detmer!! Years

1992-1995: The Where Did Ty Detmer Go?! Years (Down Years)

1996: The We Won 14 Games?! Year

1997-2000: The Lavell Sure Looks Tired Years (Down Years)

2001: The Look At Our Awesome Offense (At Least With a Healthy Luke Staley)!! Year

2002-2004: The Can Things Get Any Worse Years (Down Years)

2005-Present: The Bronco Mendenhall Years

Hey, we have a number of great years pre-Lavell. There's 1932, going 8-1 with the Ottster. There's the first conference championship in 1965. (OK, BYU was 6-4 that year...). And the Carteresque 8-2 year in 1966. Then there was....well, I guess that was it.

So 6% of our first 50 years were "great." Like I said, it may as well not have existed.