It's been seven years since LaVell Edwards roamed the sidelines, his arms often folded, his face fixed in that famous down-turned frown that was really a grin.
Yet, retired and far from a whistle, the influence Edwards has had on the game remains very visible.
Gil Brandt, former Dallas Cowboy personnel director, once said while Edwards was in his heyday, "BYU has as good an offensive concept as anyone — college or pro — in football."
This year's No. 1 preseason pick, USC, is still paddling around with remnants of BYU's passing game foundation, brought to the Trojans (student body right-or-left tradition) by a former Cougar coach. With the arrival of former Edwards assistant Norm Chow, USC now enjoys firepower to go with its talent and a resurgence in this decade as a national power.
Little mystery, when Chow left USC for the Tennessee Titans, USC's defensive-minded head coach Pete Carroll made former BYU quarterback Steve Sarkisian (Cotton Bowl 1996) not only his offensive coordinator and quarterback coach, but to keep him happy, assistant head coach.
Is USC ever going to have a running back earn a Heisman Trophy again?
It was Chow who helped lead USC quarterbacks Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart to positions atop the college football world, just like he did with Robbie Bosco, Steve Young, Ty Detmer and Philip Rivers when he coached at North Carolina State. Now USC's David Booty is the beneficiary of Edwards through Sarkisian.
This BYU pass foundation, a system of execution and creating space in a defense, is also present at New Mexico State, where Hal Mumme is the head man. It also followed Mike Holmgren to Green Bay where he hired former BYU lineman Andy Reid. Both are now NFL head coaches at Seattle and Philadelphia, respectively.
Back to the current Edwards trace element.
In the Steve Young days in Provo, Mumme befriended current BYU offensive coordinator Robert Anae when Anae was a graduate assistant at BYU. He took Cougar offensive concepts, which to this day he publicly credits to Edwards, and deployed a spread option attack that saw success at Kentucky with Tim Couch after a run at Valdosta State.
While some "concepts" of Mumme's offense have retained aspects of what he learned in BYU's spring camps, he has evolved it into one-back spread formations with four and five receivers that differs from BYU's heavy use of the tight end and two-back sets.
This is the same BYU execution genesis that intrigued a young 1983 BYU graduate Mike Leach, who frequented Edwards' practices in 1982 and 1983. Leach took what he learned from observing the Cougar passing game and applied it to formations and practices at Iowa Wesleyan, where he met Mumme and followed him as coordinator to Valdosta State and Kentucky before creating a passing game at Oklahoma that got him the head job at Texas Tech.
For the record, this is where Anae worked for several seasons under Leach on his way back to BYU in 2005.
This is where it gets interesting come this Saturday in LaVell Edwards Stadium in BYU's opener against Arizona.
The Wildcats, hungry for an answer on offense to go with its tough-minded defense, hired Sonny Dykes, the offensive coordinator at Texas Tech to be the Arizona offensive coordinator this past off-season.
It was Mumme and Leach who influenced Dykes when Dykes coached at Kentucky before following Leach to Texas Tech.
It's interesting, this Edwards influence and what started back in 1973. That year, Edwards designed a pass game idea and hired former Tennessee quarterback Dewey Warren. He later honed his plan with Doug Scovil, who was influenced by the legendary Sid Luckman. That led to a Mike Holmgren, a Ted Tollner and then the famous Norm Chow.
It really began because Edwards was familiar with the single wing and knew that if you did something different, it caused defenses preparation problems when they faced your team.
On Saturday, the link goes like this: Arizona's Sonny Dykes comes to Provo and will face BYU coordinator Robert Anae, who used to work with Dykes under Leach. Both were influenced by Mumme who befriended Anae while scoping out LaVell Edwards' passing game in the early '80s.
Another Edwards link is current Louisville offensive coordinator Charlie Stubbs, a graduate assistant with the Cougars from 1983-84 when Anae started at guard and Leach and Mumme were in Provo. Stubbs worked for former Cougar O-line coach Dave Kragthorpe at Oregon State after a stint at Memphis and he's been a coordinator at Alabama and Tulsa.
Now formations have changed, the plays have been tweaked and different points of emphasis have been underscored (shotgun, no huddle, etc.) with these men and their careers.
But there is one common thread in all of this, a man enjoying his retirement and grandchildren, a guy who is expected to be in the stadium Saturday, a place that carries his name.
Such meetings will likely continue, long after his bodily presence is no longer possible.
But that, folks, is the trail blazed by one LaVell, seventh child of Philo and Addie of Orem. It's a web that just keeps on spinning.
E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com