Cougars in own way of BCS berth

PROVO — After Brigham Young University's football weekend in Las Vegas, one BYU doubter fired off a note to the Deseret Morning News and made a point — although the assertion may not have been the one he intended in dismissing the Cougars' 11-2 finish and aspirations for a BCS berth in seasons to come.

"Reality check for the Cougars," the critic wrote as a comment to an earlier BYU story at deseretnews.com. "Beating a 6-6 UCLA team on the last play of the game does not mean you are ready for a BCS push. ... BYU is light-years from making a push to a BCS game."

Actually, in 2006, BYU was two or three plays — at Arizona and Boston College — from going undefeated and possibly getting a BCS berth.

And in 2007, the Cougars were a pick-six and fumble at UCLA, and another pick-six at Tulsa, from going undefeated and likely surging ahead of Hawaii in the polls for a BCS berth in the season just finished.

That isn't "light-years" from a BCS berth. It's just a zip code distance away.

"Our goal is to win the national championship," third-year head coach Bronco Mendenhall told reporters last week.

"When BYU won it in 1984, it had won nine consecutive conference championships. I don't think it will take nine straight again. I do think it will take similar seasons as we have had now with back-to-back titles. Championships and bowl trips can pave the way for an undefeated season and giving us that opportunity to play for it all. All the last two years have done is rekindle that flame and desire to get there."

Mendenhall believes the current BCS system keeps out teams like BYU, Boise State, Hawaii and Utah that have a loss.

"We have the model and system in place and excellent players," he said. "I think we have established ourselves as a team to watch (for a BCS berth)."

Mendenhall is absolutely right — especially if Hawaii, with its only undefeated season in school history — loses to Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and his Cougars enter 2008 with the nation's longest win streak.

If the Cougars want to go to the BCS, they cannot lose in 2008.

The Cougars have only one undefeated football season in school history, and that was 1984 (13-0) — an occurrence that propelled big conferences to start the Bowl Coalition, which morphed into the current-day Bowl Championship Series.