BYU's football program has lost its way.

Twenty years down the road from their national championship, the Cougars are completely befuddled.

Can't win on the field, can't win off it.

They've tried everything to right themselves.

Off the field, former stars give pep talks to current players about the importance of obeying the Honor Code, which demands abstinence from sex, alcohol, cigarettes, etc., etc . . .

The players are shown videos about the Honor Code. The athletic director grills them about the Code. The head coach, who wholeheartedly believes in the Honor Code and supports it, reminds players repeatedly to steer clear of trouble.

Yet six athletes have already been suspended during the offseason and, on the eve of the 2004 season opener, more are almost certain to follow in the wake of gang-rape accusations by a 17-year-old girl.

Who knew the Colorado Buffaloes had moved into town?

If one of the chief goals of BYU athletics is to bring positive attention to the school's owner, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they have failed miserably.

The irony is that the Cougars are playing more returned missionaries than ever — a dozen or more will start for the Cougars on opening day, twice the number who started on the national championship team. About 90 percent of this year's roster are returned missionaries or players who plan to serve missions — supposedly, the most in school history.

That might be part of the problem. Because of the constant turnover of missionaries and the pressure to play at an elite level, BYU coaches have increasingly recruited athletes from other parts of the country who have never lived Honor Code rules and have no exposure to the culture. More irony: While signing more blue-chip athletes from Texas, California and beyond, the Cougars are losing more games — 17 of their last 26.

Some claim the number of Honor Code violators among football players is the same as it was in the '70s and '80s, but former coaches and players dispute this. "I don't think it was this many," says a former player. "And when we had problems, it was for things like drinking. I don't remember the law being involved."

Another former player and a former coach say the same thing — "We had problems with beer, not orgies."

The Cougars have brought this on themselves, recruiting players whose arrival in Provo is like landing on another planet.

"Don't make BYU fit the athlete, make the athlete fit BYU," says Jason Buck, a former BYU All-American from the '80s. "Don't go out with the idea you're going to recruit like every other school in the country. C'mon.

"Recruit character guys first. I'd rather have a character kid who runs a 4.5 than the other kid who runs 4.3. You have to believe in your soul that you can win with those kids. If not, you shouldn't coach there. Recruit the Intermountain corridor and you can win. Get us all together (former players), and we all say the same thing."

He points to Air Force as a team that recruits only a certain type of student-athlete — almost always the kids no big-time program would sign — and wins. In their glory days, the Cougars lived on players such as Chuck Cutler, Andy Boyce, Kelly Smith, Shane Shumway and the Doman brothers — Utahns and/or Mormons who were developed in the program. Today's BYU wouldn't even sign those players.

BYU was never about blue-chip talent and speed in the '70s and '80s; it was about finesse and outexecuting more talented teams. Utah and San Diego State always had more speed and talent, at least as the latter is defined by NFL combines. But these days the Cougars look far and wide in their search for those commodities, and it has backfired on and off the field.

The demise of the Ricks College athletic program hasn't helped. It served as a farm team, enabling the Cougars to fill gaps with developed players who were already living the Honor Code. Snow and Dixie colleges have the bulk of those players now, but last spring the Cougars didn't sign a single player from those schools. They also signed just three Utah preps.

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"If a kid doesn't already live this way, he's going to have a hard time," says former BYU quarterback Blaine Fowler. "Even if he thinks he's going to change."

Says Buck, "They've got two of the best JCs in the country right here. They're more ready to plug into BYU rather than a JC from California or Texas. They understand what BYU is about. There are a ton of Mormon kids out there who can play. "

"We're all sick about what's happened at BYU," says Buck, referring to former players. "Most of us chose to turn down other schools so we could represent BYU and the church. It meant so much to us. We loved BYU."


E-mail: drob@desnews.com

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