In my TBM days I was a pretty big BYU fan. Back in the early 80s I loved their football. The one thing that always bothered me though was that the teams always seem to run out of steam towards the end of the game and at times a close game could turn into an almost rout simply because they just didn't have the stamina to go the whole game.

I always wondered why if they were obeying the WOW because of the promises in it. I guess if the truth be told, that was my first step away from the church. I could see that it was obvious that the WOW did not give them any advantage over teams from schools where I knew they partied and did not obey the WOW.

Anyway, just thought I would drop that by for some comment after BYU's loss in overtime last night.

They finished in the AP Top 20 five of those six years, and in the AP Top 15 four of those six years. The Word of Wisdom is a crock of shit, but BYU football wasn't getting "almost routed" very often in the early '80's.

No their football team rarely did but the basketball team was a different story. I grouped all sports into one statement, my bad.

They are a solid football team, having a national title and multiple top 25 finishes. They are helped by a strong Polynesian contingency shoring up their offensive line. They suffer for lack of black players due to Mormon racism, especially at WR, RB and CB.

Their basketball team has never been to the Final 4, a glaring gap on their resume that even Fredette couldn't overcome. The NBA is predominantly black and BYU has very few non-white students. Black athletes eschew BYU for other schools, making BYU handicapped in recruitment.

Ya, just think of all the beer-swilling, pill-popping, steroid-using, tobacco-chewing, cigar-smoking, coffee-drinking, Hall of Famers in all sports there have been.

Just a thought.

Ron

I don't see the correlation in the OP's statement. BYU's lily-white, slow, can't jump basketball program has been pretty successful but not perennially a powerhouse. Same reason Grambling or Moorehouse doesn't make it to the Frozen Four Championships with frequency. Top-rated prospects just don't go to those schools for obvious reasons.

Ron

Duke University desegrated in 1963. Durham has a large black population. The university itself is 10% black and 47% non-Hispanic white. Their basketball team is 30-40% black. Duke is not affiliated with a religion that discriminated against blacks until 1978.

BYU has 176 black students on its campus of 27,000 undergrads and 5,000 grad students. 85% of students are non-Hispanic Whites. Provo has similar demographics: 88% non-Hispanic whites, 0.5% blacks.

Without Davies, BYU has 2 black players, neither of them starters.