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PROVO — When debating college football versus NFL football, one thing college will always have more of than the NFL is different kinds of football culture.
College football features a smorgasbord of cultural options: Southern, Midwestern, Texan, Northeastern or Western teams; private schools, military schools or public schools — they all play football, but each of those groups also has unique styles and methods.
The NFL has amazingly high execution, and there aren’t any 77-0 blowouts, but all that execution and competitive balance also means there’s not as many football flavors to sample. Those are the options one is left with when your choice begins with picking one eccentric billionaire’s style over another.
I bring all this up because I think BYU’s football culture is evolving. Certainly BYU has a unique social culture, but I’m only talking about the way the team plays the game on the field. Like many teams in college, BYU’s culture has been more heavily weighted on one side of the ball: BYU is known for offense in general and more often the quarterback, specifically.
BYU’s all-time list of All-Americans has 47 players on it, which includes freshmen and second and third team selections for the award. By my count, 34 of those 47 played on the offensive side of the ball, with nine defensive and three special teams players earning All-American honors of one kind or another.
BYU has had great defenders, but often your brand is only about one thing, and historically, BYU’s calling card has been the guys who are on the field to put points on the board.
For the fans, there’s certainly nothing wrong with having a great offense. It’s fun to watch, and going on four decades now, BYU fans have been treated to a series of high-quality quarterbacks. Over all that time, I think BYU fans have learned to look for, hope for, recognize and get excited about being able to see great quarterback play.
But after the first game of the season, I do wonder if some of the generations of fans who grew up watching the kind of football played in LaVell Edwards Stadium may have missed out on learning to look for great defense.
I’m not saying BYU fans don’t know how to get loud on third downs or that they don’t like defense, but I do wonder if BYU fans get excited about defense the same way they anticipate their quarterback.
Nebraska might be going through something of the opposite of what BYU is going through now. The neighborhood Cornhusker fans I’ve talked to over the weekend are excited their team won but are worried that the defense just really isn’t there yet. The brand of Nebraska is defense, and if that’s not there, the fans on my block say it just doesn’t feel like “Nebraska football.”
Since taking over for the defense after a 1-4 start in the 2010 season, Bronco Mendenhall has gone 17-5. The rushing defense in particular has been elite. Cougarstats recently pointed out that since Mendenhall took over, BYU “has allowed 92.5 yards per game, lower than every team in the nation except Alabama.”
You can dig up other stats on your own if you’d like, but the easier thing is to just watch for it. I think you'll like what you'll see. Also as a fan, great defense works pretty well since you’re supposed to be louder on defense anyway.
Going back to 2010, the week after taking over the defense, with his program hanging in the balance, Mendenhall said the reason he had assumed the defensive coordinator duties was because he had not “been as successful at getting to this team’s heart.”
BYU fans have grown up loving to watch how their team could throw the ball around. Based on the way his team played its first 2012 game, it appears Mendenhall has done a better job of capturing his defensive players' hearts. The question now is, how long until he will capture the hearts of the fans?
Gregory Welch, a contributor on CougarBoard.com, has followed BYU sports from six different states and currently cheers from Iowa. Professionally, he works at an ad agency and can be found at @ArtDirectorBYU on Twitter.
