BYU ready to start the single life

If you're wondering what all the fuss has been about over in the sports section of the newspaper these past few months, it is this: The BYU football team went through a bad breakup — a football divorce, if you will — and has opted for the crazy unfettered singles life.

The Cougars broke up with the Mountain West Conference, which, on a side note, also allowed them to cut ties with the league's silly TV network, which operates out of Wayne and Garth's basement, but isn't that good.

So the Cougars are stepping out. On Saturday in Mississippi, they will begin life as an attractive single — or independent, as they call it — no strings attached, no commitments, no one to come home to at night, no one they have to share the paycheck with, no one to tell them what they can and can't do.

Was this just a mid-life crisis? A wild hair? A money-grab? After all, it was a move so big and bold that you had to question their sanity. If being an independent is so attractive, why are there are only four schools in the country who have chosen college football's alternative lifestyle — Army, Navy, Notre Dame and BYU?

Only a handful of other schools have tried it. Utah State was single for a while, and we know how that worked out. Hawaii and Air Force also were single for years. All three are married to conferences now.

There are many challenges to the single life. It's difficult to find weekend dates with opponents who are otherwise engaged with their own conference schedule. What do teams have to gain by giving a date to an outsider, especially a solid opponent like BYU, in the middle of conference play? Home games will be even more difficult to schedule. If an independent does manage to land a good TV contract — and the Cougars did — it will require that school to sign up TV-worthy opponents, which means there are very few soft opponents a la UTEP, Wyoming, New Mexico, etc. There also is no championship to play for and no established path to a bowl game.

Life as a single can be a lonely business. Or, to quote a song, "one is the loneliest number."

The Cougars thought about all this long and hard and struck out on their own anyway. Perhaps it's the pioneer stock in their blood.