Missions, Coach Provide BYU With Certain Advantages

Football coaches love to moan about the advantages their opponents have, but it is at least more palatable when they do it with a comic twist.

Navy’s Elliot Uzelac did precisely that this week in talking about Brigham Young, his opening-game opponent Saturday at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

Uzelac made mention of the “so-called missions” the BYU players go on. Then he had fun talking about the ages of the visiting players.

“Some of our 18-year-olds,” said Uzelac, shaking his head in wonderment, “are going to line up opposite guys 25 and 26 years old with kids. Our players are going to find out early what the real world’s all about.”

The truth is that Brigham Young students, not just football players, do leave school to go on religious missions. BYU players are old. And a lot of them are married and do have children.

This, quite simply, is the nature of Brigham Young University, a church-sponsored institution in Provo, Utah, that is little understood, particularly in the East.

People often think of BYU as “a little Mormon school.” It is not little. Its 27,000 students make it the largest private university in the country.

Ninety-eight percent of the students are Mormons. Students come from all 50 states and 70 countries. More than 8,000 are bilingual, having learned a foreign language while serving a mission for the Mormon church in another country.

Academically, BYU is excellent. Between 1975 and 1978, it graduated four Rhodes Scholars, a record matched only by Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

And the athletic program is a wonder. In 1984, BYU won the national championship in football. It has produced some of America’s greatest athletes, including Jim McMahon, Steve Young, basketball’s Danny Ainge and baseball’s Jack Morris.

Because it is different, BYU is often the target of comic efforts by opponents. Coach LaVell Edwards has heard so many that he has some pretty good comebacks of his own.

When his Cougars beat Boston College in the Kickoff Classic at the Meadowlands in 1985 -- Robbie Bosco was the quarterback star for BYU that night -- a New York writer asked Edwards how his team was able to have such outstanding pass protection year after year.

“We send our offensive linemen away on missions,” Edwards said, “so we can teach them how to hold.” Even here at the proper Naval Academy, the Cougars catch it.

Ralph Zobell, a Mormon himself who is here this week as spokesman for BYU, said one-third of the football team is married.

“How many wives are they allowed?” Jack Cloud, a longtime Navy coach who now does color on Middies broadcasts, asked irreverently.

“One,” said Zobell. “The church no longer allows polygamy.”

“How many wives did the founder of your church, Brigham Young, have?” Zobell was asked.

“I believe it was 26,” he said -- and you can be sure he is right.

The most popular man in Utah nowadays is Edwards, 58, who is in his 18th year as coach.

Before he came in 1972, the Cougars averaged fewer than three wins a season. Under Edwards, they have won 156 games, 11 Western Athletic Conference championships (including 10 in a row), and played in 13 bowl games.

You could win a lot of bets by challenging someone to name the four winningest college football coaches in the country percentage-wise.

Many would get the top three: Nebraska’s Tom Osborne, No. 1 with a percentage of .811; Penn State’s Joe Paterno, second at .795; and Michigan’s Bo Schembechler, third at .773. Not many, however, would know that Edwards is No. 4 at .744.

They probably could name some of BYU’s quarterbacks - Virgil Carter, Gifford Nielsen, Marc Wilson, McMahon, Young and Bosco.

BYU obviously did more than luck out in recruiting all that talent. The answer is Edwards and his system, which features a sophisticated passing attack.

The Cougar who’ll be doing the throwing against Navy is sophomore Ty Detmer, who passed for 537 yards last week in a 46-41 loss to Washington State. BYU opened with a 24-3 win over New Mexico.

“If anybody knows how to put together a passing attack, it’s Brigham Young,” Uzelac said.

It’s a little surprising that BYU, which draws 65,000 for every home game, would travel this distance to play Navy a one-shot game before a slightly less than sellout crowd at 30,000-seat Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

But no matter. What’s important is that the fans around here have a rare opportunity to see one of the most interesting teams in the nation.