Cougars: "We Are Too No. 1!"

By Tom Callahan

Unblemished Brigham Young braces for the argument

If any other major college football team in the country were undefeated, Brigham Young University would probably be No. 2, which may yet be arranged. Having reduced Michigan's record to a level 6-6 in last week's stirring 24-17 Holiday Bowl, the nation's only 13-0 team, now 24 games between losses, is still no more than a referendum question. Quarterback Robbie Bosco was carried to the clubhouse after a first-quarter foul, but returned limping in the second to bobble along imperfectly and heroically.

Gallantry, however, cannot carry a debate. Several weeks ago, a television poll of ABC viewers deemed the Cougars unworthy champions by 53% to 47%. Orange Bowl contestants Oklahoma (9-1-1) and Washington (10-1), along with the presiding NBC network, count themselves on the side of the majority. The Cougars' weakness is the WAC, unfortunate shorthand for the Western Athletic Conference, which B.Y.U. has dominated for nine years. At the same time, it ought to be noted, Pitt was ranked third back when the season commenced for the Cougars in Pittsburgh, 20-14, and the WAC team no better than third in the conference, Air Force, has trimmed Notre Dame three years straight.

Sharlene Wells, a student at Brigham Young, believes, "Because we have conservative values, people underestimate us. But this is Utah's time." She is the current Miss America and finds it "refreshing there is a team that wins all of its games without getting drunk the night before." As the mythical national championship is a kind of beauty contest, a parallel here is hard to resist. Both Wells and the Cougars represent something of an alternative to scandal.

"I get that a lot, 'You were only picked because of your image,' " she says. In the opinion of more than a few experts, Florida (9-1-1) possesses the choicest livestock at the moment, but the Gators are No. 1 only on the N.C.A.A. court docket, awaiting sentencing for recruiting violations. Considering the moral depravity of this sport, it is possible that some A.P. and U.P.I, voters could be negatively influenced by B.Y.U.'s positive image, maybe just finding it hard to credit that the nation's best college football team could be a relentlessly white one in a lost time zone, far away from the big television money not to mention all the other brands of intoxication.

Where most teams speak of "returning lettermen," B.Y.U. keeps statistics on "returning missionaries." The current center, Trevor Matich, has hiked to all of the big four quarterbacks: Marc Wilson, Jim McMahon, Steve Young and Bosco, the national leader in total offense. Matich has managed this by breaking up his playing career with a year and a half of Mormon preaching in Mexico. "When you see kids in adobe houses twelve to a room," he says, "you don't care so much about who's No. 1."

There are 52 missionaries in the football program now, and Bosco's likeliest successor is off recommending love in South Africa, a considerable irony, since exactly 36 blacks are counted among B.Y.U.'s 26,000 students, and seven are members of the football team. They are outnumbered by Polynesians. "Our recruiting is not predicated on black or white, Mormon or non-Mormon," insists La Veil Edwards, 54, the Mormon coach, "but on lifestyle, people who can appreciate our environment." Every student (98% of the student body is Mormon, 67% of the football team) takes an oath to abstain from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea and premarital sex. Not surprisingly, B.Y.U. is probably the most married college football team in history, counting some 30 happy unions. The Cougars' most talented pass receiver, Glen Kozlowski, has two children, and he's a junior.

"Three years ago, if anyone had mentioned national championship," says Kozlowski, "I would have laughed and told them, 'I'm going to Provo because there's great skiing.' " Is that truly the reason? "It was a factor." If Coach Edwards' brilliance is the passing game, his wisdom is treating as assets what the previous coaches in all the bleak years before 1972 considered liabilities, including snowfalls. One of 14 children who farmed the ground near where the stadium stands now, Edwards is a wit who pretends to have hay in his hair. "We come to town with a ten-dollar bill in one pocket and the Ten Commandments in the other," he says. "And we don't break either one."

Even the coach's sophomore son Jim, who is getting married this week, excused himself for a time to spread the word in Sweden. "But the coach never urges even the best players not to go," young Edwards says admiringly. "And when you find out that he thinks spirituality is more important than football, that's when you get perspective. Some players return and just don't want to play games any more, but the ones who do are a little older and a little more mature." The average age on the team is 22.

The Cougars have led the country in passing seven of the past nine years. For all of their quarterbacks with professional skills--going back to Virgil Carter in the '60s--no receivers have been similarly distinguished. The Raiders' tight end Todd Christensen was a fullback at B.Y.U. Bosco says, "We don't get the top recruits, the fastest receivers, but the ones we get are smart. They do what they're told. They don't ad-lib." This season they have managed to catch his passes for 35 touchdowns and more than 4,000 yds., including 343 yds. against Michigan.

Before the game, Wolverines Coach Bo Schembechler pursued his own lilting syllogism through the great dismal swamp: "When you're unranked, if you get the opportunity to beat the champion and you do beat the champion, you're the champion, right?" Trailing in first-place votes by 33 1/2 to 16 1/2, but by only eight points overall, Oklahoma has been trying to mesmerize the A.P.'s college of writers the same way. U.P.I.'s list, the coaches' poll, is another matter. They know what it means to be undefeated. This season Oklahoma had its Kansas, South Carolina had its Navy, Nebraska had its Syracuse. Comparative schedules be damned. B.Y.U. had those kind too, and won them all.

--By Tom Callahan