John Walters

Long before the incarnation of the term BCS Buster, there was BYU. Located in Provo, Utah, at the base of the Wasatch Mountains, situated at the crossroads of gridiron greatness and the Eisenhower era, is the paragon of at-large programs: Brigham Young University.

As the 2008 college football season passes its midpoint, five schools that reside in the non-Bowl Championship Series (BCS) remain undefeated. Your potential 2008 BCS-busters are:

• Tulsa (6-0), which remains relevant as long as the Golden Hurricane continue to lead the nation in scoring.
• Ball State (7-0), which can count on alumnus David Letterman to maintain their profile, as long as the King of Late Night does not become too preoccupied with excoriating John McCain.
• Boise State (5-0), which will be fondly and favorably considered for as long as memories of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl remain, which is to say, the rest of our lives.
• Utah (7-0), whose advocates will remind you that the Utes were the first at-large team to play in (as well as win) a BCS bowl. Utah took down Pittsburgh in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl.

The four of them owe royalties, at least figuratively, to BYU. The Cougars, 6-0 and ranked No. 9 in the AP poll heading into Thursday night’s showdown at TCU, were here first. Since the end of World War II, only one school not currently in a BCS conference has won a national championship: BYU. The Cougars finished 13-0 in 1984, culminating in a 24-17 defeat of Michigan in the Holiday Bowl.

A little background on that: as the lone undefeated team that season, BYU finished atop both the AP and coaches’ polls after the bowls. It is worth noting that No. 2 Washington, whose only loss was to USC, declined an invitation to play the Cougars in the Holiday Bowl. U-Dub chose to play in the more prestigious (and lucrative) Orange Bowl, defeating Oklahoma but denying themselves a shot at the national title. This year’s Locker-gate debacle — the Huskies' QB was flagged for a celebration penalty against in the closing seconds that helped BYU block the game-tying PAT attempt — is only the latest chapter in these schools’ shared history.

BYU has long been an inimitable character among the cast of major-college programs. Peruse the 110-player BYU roster online and you will unearth the following data: 38 Cougar players are Eagle scouts (BYU’s entire scout team could consist of former Boy Scouts), 31 are married. Thirteen happen to be both, among them junior quarterback Max Hall. An additional six Cougar players graduated high school with 4.0 GPAs.

Wide receiver Austin Collie is one of two Cougars who score the hat trick: a married Eagle scout with a 4.0 high school grade-point average. That Collie is also second in the nation in receiving yards per game (112.17) is also exemplary, of course.

Perhaps Notre Dame comes closest to imitating BYU, and vice-versa. Consider, for instance, the inextricable link between Notre Dame football and Catholicism (Touchdown Jesus, anyone?) and how the Fighting Irish have promulgated those ties to advance their lore. Traditionally, Americans in major metropolitan areas are raised either knowing Catholics or being Catholic, and thus the intermingling of religious and gridiron terms (“Holtz resurrects Irish!”) is done with a wink and a smile.

Mormonism, more formally known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is a younger religion whose tenets are lesser-known to the masses.

At BYU, though, the priority of faith is no less interwoven to the fabric of daily life — a solid argument can be made that it is even more so. And, in the past quarter century, BYU has produced as many national championship seasons (1) and Heisman Trophy winners (1) as the Fighting Irish.

And while it is a matter of faith how much Notre Dame’s gridiron fortunes benefit by the team attending pre-game mass on Saturday’s, BYU definitely is well-served by its commitment to religion. The majority of Cougar players suspend their academic and gridiron careers for two years after their freshmen years in order to go on religious missions all over the globe. The junior and senior classes are normally between the ages of 22 and 24, more physically and emotionally mature.

All of which will remain just trivial footnotes to the 2008 season if BYU loses at TCU. The Cougars are the only BCS Buster ranked in the Top 10 on reputation as much as anything. Yes, they have that winning streak — the nation's longest at 16 — and the No. 2 scoring defense (behind only USC) at 10.2 points per game allowed. To date, though, they have only played two BCS schools: woeful Washington, whom they barely escaped, and rudderless UCLA, whom they so thoroughly ravaged that afterward the “B” in the school’s nickname was silent.

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