BYU football: Report says Francis Bernard wants to transfer to Utah
On Thursday, BYU football announced that linebacker Francis Bernard was redshirting the 2017 season for personal reasons.
On Friday night, news came out that Bernard is allegedly unhappy with BYU and wants to transfer to the school’s rival, Utah.
In an interesting story by the Salt Lake Tribune’s Jay Drew, James Bernard, the older brother of Francis, sheds some light on the situation.
He didn’t really mince words, either.
“Just to be clear: My brother wants to transfer, regardless,” James said of Francis. “We talk almost every day. He just doesn’t want to be there anymore.”
For BYU football fans, that hurts for a number of reasons. Firstly, you never really want to see a player leave. Secondly, you hate thinking that a player has that kind of disdain for a school.
To be fair here, you have to wonder if James is clear-minded about this whole thing. He may be too close to Francis to give an accurate representation of what happened. So everything he said should be taken with a grain of salt.
However, I’m going to operate under the assumption that what he’s saying is true. We can break it down as we go.
For starters, I can believe that Francis wants out of BYU football if the rumors are true that he has an ecclesiastic endorsement and is in good academic standing, yet is under this psuedo-suspension anyway.
It may be a situation where the Honor Code office once again inserted itself into a situation it didn’t necessarily belong in.
Francis and his parents have had numerous meetings with the Honor Code office.
The Honor Code office seemingly can’t answer why Bernard is being punished.
The Honor Code office can’t answer why Bernard isn’t being allowed to play.
BYU made no indication that Bernard might not be able to play until August 5 (the first scrimmage of fall camp).
Bernard wants to leave BYU football and go to Utah.
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I mean, Kalani Sitake is a big player’s coach. And I can tell you that after covering him first-hand at BYU from December 2015 until April 2017 that he really does love his players. He loves people in general. I don’t get the sense that Sitake would purposefully mislead a player.
Sitake wants what is best for Francis Bernard. It’s that simple. Whether that means Bernard stays a part of the BYU football family, or goes to Utah. Sitake just wants him happy.
Which makes me go back to the Honor Code office thing. I understand that, at this point, we’re only seeing half the story. But it certainly seems silly. If a LDS bishop has given an ecclesiastic endorsement to Bernard, and if the Honor Code office can’t really explain anything, then that should be the end of it.
In some ways, that illustrates the problem with the Honor Code. Whenever anyone suggests that the Honor Code is anything but perfect, people get defensive. But there’s no sense in attacking the Honor Code.
Everyone knows about it when they come to BYU. This is especially true for athletes. They sign it and they are aware of the details.
At the same time, there are pieces of the Honor Code that perpetuate standards that are different from the LDS Church – which is slightly problematic. And there are issues with the enforcement of the Honor Code. The Honor Code office can’t just run as the end all be all. There needs to be some sort of balance.
I don’t know. I certainly don’t have the answers.
It will be interesting to see what BYU does next. If they even address this story it would be a surprise to me. Hopefully Francis isn’t put in a bad spot because of his brother’s antics.
But regardless of all those things, there’s one thing all BYU football fans will agree on.
Not having Francis Bernard in 2017 will stink.