Doug Robinson: Is there still a place for BYU in college sports?

While BYU is trying to hold that line and preserve traditional values, the competition seems to be headed the other way. For instance, most of the top collegiate athletic programs not only sign players who have criminal histories, they sign a lot of them. According to a report published by Sports Illustrated last week, the rosters of the top 10 college football teams in the nation last season included 138 players with criminal records — almost 14 per team. The report also revealed that 7 percent of the players on teams finishing in last year's top 25 had criminal records, including charges for assault, domestic violence and burglary.

Schools will sign almost any player if they think he can help them win games and earn millions of dollars. BYU won't do that.

When the Pac-10 set out to expand its membership last year, it signed up Utah and Colorado but not BYU, even though the Cougars' athletic program has rivaled and often outperformed those schools during the last 30 years, Utah's recent football resurgence notwithstanding. In the end, the considerations for membership seemed to be dictated by TV sets (read: money), Sunday play, political leanings (read: too conservative for the liberal Pac-10 crowd), and, according to some snobs, academics. In the end, BYU felt its best option was to drop out of the Mountain West Conference and compete as an independent.

BYU is going it alone, which, in some ways, is what the school has been doing for decades anyway.

e-mail: drob@desnews.com