There's still some BYU glory in NFL

Maybe the string of BYU quarterbacks has dried up in the NFL, and the Cougars no longer produce championships and winning seasons with monotonous regularity, but the impact of the Cougars' glory days is still being felt.

As the NFL opens training camp, there are six coaches holding prominent positions in the league who learned at least part of their trade as coaches at BYU from 1979-1985.

Three of them are offensive coordinators — Mike Sheppard (Saints), Norm Chow (Titans) and Ted Tollner (Lions) — and three of them are head coaches (and former offensive coordinators) — Brian Billick (Ravens), Andy Reid (Eagles) and Mike Holmgren (Seahawks). The three head coaches have each taken teams to the Super Bowl.

All of the above coached at BYU during one golden seven-year run. No wonder the Cougars' record during that stretch was 75-14 with seven conference championships and one national championship.

All of them have backgrounds in offensive football and the passing game, which is to be expected from a group who cut their teeth at Quarterback/Pass U. (although the Ravens have not demonstrated much offense under Billick, the former BYU tight end did once oversee the prolific Minnesota Viking offense, which set an NFL scoring record while he was there).

If you wanted to carry things even further, Bart Andrus, a former assistant with the Tennessee Titans, is head coach of the Amsterdam Admirals, the newly crowned champions of NFL Europe. Jim Lind is a linebacker coach under Holmgren with the Seahawks.

This is to say nothing about ex-BYU coaches from the Edwards era who formerly coached in the NFL — Wally English and the late, great Doug Scovil were offensive coordinators, and Dwaine Painter bounced around the NFL for years among a variety of offensive assistants' jobs.

The Quarterback Factory turned out some of the game's top coaches on the side, it turns out.

"We not only had a good run of (player) talent," says legendary former head coach LaVell Edwards, "but we had a good run of coaches, too. And for the most part, (BYU) is where most of them got their start of really having good experience. Except for Scovil and Tollner, none of them had had much experience."

Edwards had a knack for choosing assistant coaches. Sheppard, Chow, Billick and Reid began collegiate coaching careers as graduate assistants at BYU. Reid was going to become a doctor until Edwards asked him, "Have you thought about being a coach? You'd be a good one."