Northern Iowa.
 

Somewhere out there, BYU71 is crapping a brick right now.

Why were people still speculating it might be a decent opponent. Bronco said "it's exactly what we need". That's 100% certainty a crappy team, based on his prior comments. If not, he would have said something like "we've made a deal and it's not along the same lines as I was talking about before but we're excited about it" or whatever.

Mendenhall better deliver a chance for 71 to go to a BCS bowl venue just to exit a tiddy bar in Nawlins wearing BYU paraphanalia so some old lady from the Baton Rouge 2nd ward can be offended. Or maybe it will be one in Phoenix so some sister in Zion from the Mesa 345678th ward can be offended. I think ward of origin and BCS venue is immaterial as long as the two saliant events occur which are 71 exiting a tiddy bar wearing BYU paraphanalia and an active mother in Zion taking offense to his breaking his unbreakable 20 dollar bill in a business of illrepute.

Mendenhall has made the purpose of this game a BCS run. He better deliver. If BYU doesn't make a BCS game, give me a better home opponent.

Why on earth would he schedule this game? Seriously. If you schedule a lower division school, you get a real crappy one that you have ZERO chance to lose. So, what does BYU get out of this? They beat them badly...people say that it was expected. You barely beat them...people laugh. You lose to them...people really laugh. All of this occurs with it helping not one bit for the whole season. Yeah, it can count to being bowl eligible, but nobody sees that being a prob next year.

Schedule a bad NCAA team and at least it counts. Sorry, that scheduling makes no sense to me and I say the same thing when Utah does it, such as with Weber State...though that makes more sense than the BYU game simply because Weber State is much worse than Northern Iowa as well as at least its a school with local ties. Still hate it though.

No Iowa
 

is a good team. Better than a lot of MWC teams. It will be a good tuneup if we win.

There is not a team in the MWC that if they played NIU 10 times would not win at least 6.

I agree but Northern Iowa beats Utah state 7 out of 10 times if not more. But at least Utah state is division 1.

You have to look at it from Gerdy's point of view: BYU, being the bestest team in the history of college football would only schedule teams that are gooder than great, except, of course, the University of Satan which is located on the hill in SLC.

In other words, BYU is the only MWC team that could ever beat No. Iowa.

I really don't like Northern Iowa or Boise State. A D1AA opponent that's better than many D1A teams and a WAC team that's better than most BCS teams. Does Holmoe know anything about risk vs. reward?

I am more excited about UNI
 

than Eastern Washington.

But you smell like a 7 year old douche bag, you get excited easily.

There she goes...there she goes right now!

I don't like it.

I like the Boise State series just announced, but it was funny they announced that at the same time as an attempt to assuage some of the anger and discontent with the announcement of Northern Iowa.

Oh well...it is what it is.

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=3373936

I know there are those that would be happy to hear I was hauled off to the mental institute over this. Not over this.

Of course because I will try to unload my tickets to that game I will be accused of being not a "true blue fan".

There will be even those who will call me a Bronco,Holmoe and BYU hater.

I do agree with napper. We are doing this to get to the BCS has been stated. They better hope this isn't a run from our own 5 yard line with 19 sec. left in the first half.

Reminded me of Meat picking up Porky's daughter in "Porky's Revenge."

I hate UNR.

With our luck, Boise State will be a sucky, irrelevant program again by the time we play them in 2012.

Darned if we do, darned if we don't.

The only way you sell those tickets is if you bundle them with the FUCLA game.

Do you think fan friendly BYU will link single game tickets, UCLA/N. Iowa?

Last year they did Ut and EWU I heard. They didn't for us, but then again we are Legacy. :)

That was the number reason for the wait was hoping that fans would look past the fact that we are bringing in a 1AA team to open the season. Yes Neveda screwed us but I have seen there were large number of D1 teams that still had opening next year and we couldn't or should I say didn't try to get one to fill that spot.

With openings still available for 09' and 10'.....I wonder if....well I'm sure BYU is working on a home and home with someone.

The Boise state series sucks too. Because at least the first year in 2012, we have Army, Utah state and Washington, now we add Boise state to the mix. This doesnt schedule doesnt excite me either. The worst team in the Pac-10, the Wac, and maybe one of the worst in all of Division 1 (army). Sounds like fun.

One gets the distinct impression that our AD feels like he can act with impunity, in a way that best ensures he keeps his job.

And the best part? The fans will eat it up and praise him year after year.

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=3374215

Sorry to use my posts at other places. I am trying to get my message in front of as many people as possible. :)

If you wanted to create a plan to marginalize BYU football, you would have the mtn, and you would schedule Armys and Boise States and Div 1aa.

How are you sure about this? Inside info? Please share. If not, what's your line of thinking? I don't see it that way. Seems obvious to me, we're going for two D1-AA's.

Last four scheduled teams: Utah State, Army, Northern Iowa, Boise State. No BCS teams. Hmm...is this a trend?

It is their program and they decide the direction. I as a fan who supports the program with both $$ and lungs would like to know exactly what that plan is.

I might or might not want to support it fully. I don't feel others need to feel the same way as I do, but I think I should have that info. available for me to make my decision.

This isn't the same as supporting the church and paying tithing.

Well, to be fair, how about a concept that isnt being discussed today......what if some of the decent teams that had availability for our opener simply didnt want to play us? Florida State, for example.

Nothing we can do about that.

Of course, if Bronco keeps talking about the Ohio State Doctrine of purposely scheduling crappy teams, it is hard to believe that Holmoe made a legit effort to schedule a great team for our opener.

Looks like I will be spending more time at the Coliseum next season. I cant think of a single reason to attend a BYU home game next year.

2008
Date Opponent
Aug. 30 at Virginia
Sept. 13 Ohio State
Sept. 25 at Oregon State
Oct. 4 Oregon
Oct. 11 Arizona State
Oct. 18 at Washington State
Oct. 25 at Arizona
Nov. 1 Washington (Homecoming)
Nov. 8 California
Nov. 15 at Stanford
Nov. 29 Notre Dame
Dec. 6 at UCLA

SC's patsy homecoming game is against our marquee opponent. Yikes.

Exactly. Everyone is making the assumption a better team was available.

Now that's a schedule.

And they've got the hosses to handle it.

That scenario would be a lot easier to swallow if it hadn't been said that we want to schedule a 1AA team and something to the effect on Friday saying this opponent is just what we needed.

The mtn debacle is becoming easier and easier to swallow. I feel like a crab in a warm pot. Let me know when it's boiling. I'll be nice and red and juicy.

I don't understand why everyone's got their panties in a wad over this. Does anyone really believe we're in contention for the national championship next year? That's really the only scenario where we could use more of a boost in strength of schedule.

We're going to have a nice warm-up game to start the season. Considering how we've had trouble at the beginning of the last few seasons against BCS conference teams, it will be nice to get the kinks out and get a little momentum and confidence going into Washington.

And for the chicken littles out there, yes, it's a huge downer if we lose to Northern Iowa. But if we lose to them, what makes you think we would have won had we played Florida State that week? And if we lose, what makes you think we deserve a BCS bid, anyway?

We're going to start out ranked in the top 25 (if not top 20). We've got a huge jump over last year. If we go undefeated, we will be in a BCS bowl. If we lose 1 game, we still have a good chance of being in a BCS bowl. Consider that with 2 losses, and with not starting out in the top 25, last season, we still weren't that far out of BCS bowl contention. In fact, we weren't mathematically eliminated until after the last regular season game. WITH TWO LOSSES!!

Baby steps, people!! Playing Northern Iowa removes a potential stumbling block from the start of what can be a really good season.

I'm happy and relieved with the game.

I am looking at it from my perspective. I buy season tickets and would like to look forward to going to the games. Maybe there are 90,000 fans who want to go and see BYU play a 1AA team. Fine, I still should be able to state I don't want to.

If there were 3 exciting games to look forward to in LES, that lessens the blow. Right now there are two. This is not a knock, but if you were a season ticket holder do you fall into that group who want to go no matter who we play or do you see my point.

I am really looking forward to BYU playing in a BCS game. Hearing week after week, pundits telling me how BYU doesn't deserve to be in the game, how they barely beats teams x, y, and z. Comparing the team to Hawaii. Quoting Bronco saying he wanted the schedule easier.

Yeah, that will be great fun.

you have to give it to pete carroll - he is not afraid to play a brutal schedule.

It's a fallacy that tough schedule is only necessary for chance to become national champion. Tough schedule is important for

1. Ticket sales
2. Fan enthusiasm
3. Recruiting--"you're going to play a schedule just as tough as you would if you go to ASU or pretty close at least"
4. chance to make BCS with one even two losses
5. integrity, i.e. we're a top 40 program but we purposefully schedule a #90 SOS in order to ensure wins?
6. ESPN and other national exposure
7. prepare for conference play, i.e. get better playing good teams or expose weaknesses early on to fix them rather than wait till you're in conference play to find out
8. future TV money for conference and self

I think you could go on and on.

I agree, except that the 1 loss better come to a ranked or a very good opponent.

it is a fallacy only if you are in a bcs conference. hate to break it to you, but there is no way that a non-bcs team will be playing for the national championship under the current system (i.e. a system that is not a playoff) unless they have a strong schedule.