A Media Personality Actually Gives Credit To BYU!
If you watched the BYU-Colorado Alamo Bowl game this last Saturday, you may have noticed a very common theme.
The team losing the football game, the Colorado Buffaloes, was the team often spotlighted in the broadcast.
The team winning the game, in grandiose fashion mind you, was rarely discussed, and when they were it certainly didn’t have much substance.
The BYU Cougars who dispatched the Buffaloes to the tune of 36-14 are used to being overlooked at this point in time.
Picked to finish 13th in their second year in the Big 12, BYU started the season 9-0 and was in the running until the bitter end for a shot at Big 12 championship game appearance.
Despite a disappointing ending, with losses to Kansas and Arizona State derailing a chance at a playoff bid in the inaugural 12 team college football playoff format, BYU overachieved and outperformed even the most diehard of Cougar fans expectations.
In Receiving a bid to one of the more prestigious non-playoff bowl games BYU had a chance to make sure they ended the season as not a good team, but a great one and silence some noise In the process.
After all, the match up with Colorado would pit the team out of Provo against the Heisman Trophy Winner, Travis Hunter, and the likely 1st overall pick in the NFL draft, Shedeur Sanders all being led by one of thee biggest personalities in the world of sports, Coach Deion Sanders.
BYU took the publicity that comes with playing the Buffaloes head on, in front of 64, 261 fans at the Alamodome (largest crowd since 2016) and ran up the score while stifling the star driven Buffaloes to 120 yards in three quarters, putting the game to bed early.
Yet, despite the loud victory for BYU the noise was still there.
The broadcast, the written articles after, the discussion as whole was still largely focused on Colorado, seemingly dismissing and discrediting the season BYU had put together with only a few short nods in BYU’s direction.
But when being overlooked is somewhat of your Modus Operandi, those small nods seem much larger than usual.
One of the few major sports media personalities to give the team a nod took to x.com today to shout out the BYU Cougars and the season they put forth, citing the Cougars as “overlooked and they shouldn’t be.”
That was Robert Griffin III, the former Big 12 quarterback out of Baylor, and a somewhat recent member of ESPN before being fired earlier this year.
Shannon Sharpe and Chad Ochocinco also gave BYU props during their Podcast, Nightcap, saying the Cougars were “flying around”.
They were incredibly surprised at how athletic and dominant the team was, seemingly baffled that a 11-2 team could play such good football.
Despite the focus on Colorado, BYU was able to open some eyes with as many people tuned in.
Thus despite the lack of chatter on the Cougars, there are some who talk sports for a living that will give the Cougars credit, just don’t expect very many.