BYU Football Countdown: Player No. 100
By Adam Gibby
In 100 days BYU Football will take on Utah in the first ever season opening matchup between two teams
100 days. There is something relieving about there being 100 or less days from the first football game. 107 seems so far compared to 100 even though both of them are longer than three months away.
Again though, that is more than three months away which for us who don’t love to watch baseball everyday, that is a long time. To help make the time go by quicker we are bringing you the Top 100 BYU players of all-time.
Yesterday, we gave the honorable mention which featured Matt Hadley (103rd), John Van Der Wouden (102nd) and Matt Arellano (101st). Today we bring you number 100.
As a review, with over 2,500 players coming through the program since it’s beginning, to make the Top 100 means that players are in the top 3-4%.
Obviously, there is going to be a lot of debate of who is really a top ten player and who misses the cut but we are going to be ranking players on three areas: Impact, statistics and memorable moments. Because of the first two areas, linemen or even punters will be featured as all-time greats despite not having any memorable moments.
I apologize ahead of time for the players pre-2000’s. Despite watching hundreds of games including many from the 1970’s, 80′ and 90’s, watching those and actually living in them are two different things. The truth is, I wasn’t alive for many of those games and so the storylines, injuries, and rivalry moments just don’t affect me the way they would have for those who lived through them. A perfect example is Matt Hadley who will be featured later. Thirty years from now nobody will know who he is or see him as a great player, but given the circumstances and what happened in 2018, he was a much bigger player than what paper shows.
As far as the grades go, this how they will be rated:
A – Elite, the sort of thing that still makes the highlight reel in twenty years. Think the Taysom leap, Ty Detmer’s Heisman season or Beck to Harline.
B – Memorable, makes the top 100 plays of all time but not legendary.
C – Had good moments that true fans will remember, but a casual fan wouldn’t recognize it.
D – Almost no significant impact/statistics/memorable moments.
The players are being ranked against themselves, not against BYU in general, otherwise all the players would have A’s and B’s on everything.