The story broke weeks ago and everyone has thrown in their two-cents while I have held my tongue.  Since this topic is actually something that I have a strong opinion about its time to put it out there.  First off, the part about Craig Thompson and the Mountain West wont be discussed in this because they don’t matter.  The reason why Thompson spoke up was to get a rise out of BYU and It’s fans and nothing more.  Mountain West teams need games against BYU as much or more than the Cougars do.  They need the notoriety and more importantly, they need the air time.

As for the SEC and ACC not adding the Cougars to their plus one systems for scheduling, it was  no-brainer in my mind that they both said no.  And as a Cougar fan myself, I saw it as a batch of honor for BYU.  It doesn’t mean that BYU can’t hang with the likes of Virginia, Vanderbilt , Georgia Tech (which BYU beat the last two seasons), North Carolina State and Kentucky like many have speculated.  It means that they are afraid of the Cougars in some small way and don’t want to share their piece of the pie with them.

Before scoffing at this and not finishing out the rest of the article at least take a second to follow my logic here.  First, ask yourself what is the only way a school that doesn’t have power 5 conference status get a set at the big boy table (both in the past and going forward)? Winning all of their games of course! Now ask yourself what happened to all of the “BCS Busters” when they did so? Not a single one had the opportunity to play for a National Championship! Not TCU, Boise State, Hawaii or even two very powerful Utah teams.  Why is that the case? The big boys didn’t want to share their spoils with the so-called little guys of college football.  Now to the most important part, the reason why.  The explanation we have always been given about why Cinderella could never dance at the Ball is the vaunted Strength-of Schedule.  That has been (and always will be) the go-to argument as to why the little guys don’t deserve a shot.

Now here is where BYU comes into play in that equation.  If you make the Cougars a legitimate plus-one option for these two power conferences, you can’t use Strength of Schedule as the argument why they shouldnt be included (on the off-chance that BYU has any amazing year).  They already play some of the big boys in college football on a regular basis, but would no doubt be able to play a few more each year, if they counted.  If they were to run the table with eight power conference teams on the schedule and games against the “second tier” elite like Utah State, Boise State, Houston and Central Florida then there is no way that the committee could limit BYU from a shot at the playoffs.  So why give BYU the chance when there is no reason too?  The SEC and ACC don’t want to give anyone else an opportunity (even if it’s very small) to take a spot in a playoff set up for them.