BYU Football: Exactly how important is 2021?

BYU Football may not need a special season to set themselves up nicely for the future.

Whoever said that summer is a boring time for college football was wrong about 2020. Just this summer, the NIL has gone into effect, the transfer portal has opened up more than it was before, and was topped off last week with Texas and Oklahoma announcing that they intend to move to the SEC.

While it feels like the Jenga tower of college football is already starting to topple over, BYU Football finds themselves in an interesting situation of being both a strong candidate for expansion while also on the outside looking in to the P5 leagues.

But how much of BYU Football’s future depends on 2021?

Less than you’d think.

As long as BYU is bowl eligible, the needle likely won’t move much in BYU’s chances to join a P5 league. Obviously if the Cougars go 4-8 it will hurt their chances, the same as going 10-2 or better will help their chances.

Much of BYU’s candidacy lies in three areas; history, fanbase/following, and potential. We all know that BYU has the history that matches most P5 teams and tops nearly every G5 team with a National Championship, Heisman Trophy winner and 18 Top 25 finishes. 

As far as fanbases go, BYU is located in Utah Valley which has well over 600,000 residents. While that doesn’t stack up with Orlando (UCF), Houston or Cincinnati, the number of local fans exceeds most of the other G5 teams considering that Orlando isn’t only home to UCF fans, but also many Florida and Florida State fans. Cincinnati has many Ohio State fans and Houston is a mix of Texas A&M and Texas fans. Utah Valley and even Salt Lake Valley are pretty split between only BYU and Utah fans. Also, if you want to sell at least an additional 5,000 tickets at any game, BYU fans will take care of that.

With potential, there is no doubt that BYU would make the transition to the Big 12 or any other P5 league relatively easy. This year alone the Cougars are playing seven Power Fives plus Boise State. While BYU likely won’t go 8-0 in those games, 5-3 or even 6-2 are not out of the question. And they play a pretty fair P5 schedule featuring top teams like USC and Utah, middle of the pack teams like Virginia and Arizona State as well as bottom dwellers like Washington State and Arizona.

There wouldn’t be a five year transition period for BYU, something that would be huge for the Big 12, but also nice for other leagues if they took them. If BYU Football joined the Big 12 today (without Texas and Oklahoma), the Cougars likely finish second or third in that league.

So yes, going 11-1 or better would help the Cougars get into a major conference, but unlike so many of the other schools hoping to make the expansion list that only have recent success to rely on, the Cougars should be just fine regardless of how this season goes.