BYU Cougars sports has no place to go but up after this year

With multiple sports not meeting expectations, and very few exceeding them it is very possible that this is the worst year ever for BYU Cougars fans.

BYU football was expected to win eight games according to the FPI. The BYU women’s soccer team started the season ranked No. 8 in the nation. BYU’s women basketball was coming off of a 19-9 regular season in 2017 and returned a lot of experience for this season.

Basketball was not expected to do great according to preseason predictions, however after a 12-2 start, fans began to believe again. Men’s volleyball also came into the season ranked No. 6, a ranking that many felt was too low considering their recent success.

Then everything fell apart. The football team had its worst season in over 40 years and was forced to fire Ty Detmer. The women’s soccer team finished with a losing record for the first time in a decade and ranked No. 103 overall. The women’s basketball team started off the season 4-6 and are currently are 10-6 in conference and 15-12 overall.

After their hot start, the men’s basketball team has since gone back to mediocracy also sits tied with Pacific at 10-6 in conference play. The men’s volleyball team has already lost as many games this season as they did all season last year (four). Even the women’s volleyball team failed to make it past the sweet sixteen, which for them was a bit disappointing.

Given all of this, it could honestly be said that this academic sports year (August 2017-July 2018) is probably the worst ever for the BYU Cougars. Now before you throw out some “1940-something” year being worse consider this; BYU before the 1980’s was never considered a real athletic school. There was no booster club, huge corporate sponsors, ROC section or worldwide recruiting plans.

The good news, it would be really hard for things to get worse next year.