Air Force Academy – You don’t normally associate Brigham Young University with rape allegations. Then again, you don’t normally associate it with losing, either.
The last time I saw BYU only two years ago, it couldn’t get any lower with scuba gear. Seven players were kicked off the team in two cases dealing with sexual misconduct, and while no player was convicted, the reputation of the school and church fell into an embarrassing abyss.
The same school that had 25-of-27 winning records and the 1984 national title under LaVell Edwards had gone 14-21 from 2002 to 2004.
I remember watching coach Gary Crowton and sophomore quarterback John Beck, both battered and bruised, walking off the field in Utah’s Rice-Eccles Stadium, the symbols of scorn and ridicule. As the stadium scoreboard mockingly flashed “UTAH 52, BYU 21,” I saw a Utah fan waving a sign at the Cougars reading “WHERE’S YOUR GOD NOW?”
Talk to some around BYU and he’s on the sideline. Goes by the name of Bronco. He got his name from his father, a horse trainer in Alpine, Utah, and not because the former defensive back hit like a wild horse – or even Dennis Smith for that matter.
Bronco Mendenhall was too small to play for his beloved BYU in the 1980s, but as a second-year head coach he is bigger than Utah’s Wasatch Mountains.
In only two years, he has restored BYU’s once crystalline reputation, on and off the field. Suddenly, critics are no longer looking through the Book of Mormon to see what it says about sexual assault. They no longer have Edwards on speed dial, asking him about BYU’s once terrifying offense, the one that in 2003 Crowton led to a humiliating 3-0 defeat against hated Utah. At home.
Mendenhall has lifted the Cougars back atop the Mountain West Conference. Their systematic 33-14 dismantling of fading Air Force on Saturday keeps them alone in first place and inched them toward the top 25 at 4-0 in the league and 6-2 overall. Beck, whom Crowton threw to the wolves as a freshman fresh off the plane from his Mormon mission in Portugal, has become one of the nation’s top passers.
But it’s more than wins and losses at BYU. It’s about discipline. It’s about conviction. It’s about faith. One chant is emanating through Mormon pockets around America this fall: The Y is back.
“Coach Mendenhall is the perfect fit for what this school needs,” said Beck, who carved up Air Force for 258 yards passing and three touchdowns. “Coach Crowton is a great guy. He’s a great coach. He’s one of the greatest offensive minds I know. But Coach Mendenhall has what this school needed.
“He runs the program the way it needs to be run.”
That’s not always easy for a 40-year-old who still looks young enough to be a roommate with the bevy of 25-year-olds dotting BYU’s roster. But Mendenhall earned their trust quickly. He established a consistent policy off the field, on the field and in class. The Cougars know what to expect in practice and if they slip up afterward.
“The word I use is ‘alignment,”‘ Mendenhall said. “We want to align the program with the mission of the university and the mission of the church.”
Under Crowton it became comical. His off-field warnings were ignored. He often took over play-calling duties from coordinators who would take off their headsets in disgust in the press box. Current players still joke about those days. The lack of discipline, however, was no laughing matter.
“People think BYU is in a bubble, that nothing goes wrong,” Cougars senior offensive tackle Jake Kuresa said. “But the same things happen here that happen everyplace else. The difference is here it’s not accepted.”
Mendenhall had seen it all as defensive coordinator under Crowton. After Crowton’s firing and Mendenhall’s promotion, he went about restoring the BYU of old. To lift a miserable offense, he dipped into BYU’s past and hired Brandon Doman, BYU’s all-conference quarterback from 2001, as quarterbacks coach, and Robert Anae, a guard on the 1984 title team, away from Texas Tech as offensive coordinator.
You can tell old is new at BYU. With about 6 1/2 minutes left in Saturday’s rout, running back Fui Vakapuna collared a Falcon after the whistle and threw him to the ground for no apparent reason. No whistle came but Anae did, getting in Vakapuna’s face and then gathering the offense to deliver the same message: “I don’t want to see any of that kind of stuff on the field!”
The players listened. They have listened for two years. Now they have something to say to Utah fans: WHERE’S YOUR SIGN NOW?
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
