Is BYU's 'fit first' philosophy producing enough results?


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PROVO — BYU football has looked the same the last three years, with the overwhelming majority of the team consisting of returned LDS missionaries sprinkled in with a few handfuls of non-Mormons.

In his 11th season as the head coach, Bronco Mendenhall seems to point with some level of pride that 80 percent of his players have spent two years spreading LDS doctrine. Another 20 players are not Mormons, he said, but their values align with the principles that all BYU students pledge to follow.

“We have a pretty simple philosophy, and it’s called fit first. I’m looking for kids that absolutely fit BYU,” Mendenhall said.

“When I’m bringing kids to BYU I’ve got to believe they fit in some capacity in Provo, at BYU, and really, really want to be there. Not being convinced to be there, but really want to be there and for reasons that have some substance to them.”

The roster components figure to remain the same in coming seasons, Mendenhall said, adding that “I love the diversity.”

But do BYU football fans mirror his outlook?

The roster makeup isn’t the only consistent part of the last three years. Over the same time frame, BYU is 24-15, having finished an unfulfilling 8-5 each season.


We have a pretty simple philosophy, and it's called fit first. I'm looking for kids that absolutely fit BYU.

–Bronco Mendenhall


Keep in mind the definition of insanity, which is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Maybe it’s time BYU recruits more for football talent and doesn’t require the perfect fit.

“In the past three years 80 percent of my team are returned missionaries,” Mendenhall said. “I don’t think that’s ever happened at BYU, but at the same time we have close to 20 players that aren’t members of the church. But they’ve come for kind of the values, to be honest with you, and their parents like that more than anything else.”

As BYU continues to forge its way through the difficulty of being an independent, Mendenhall is in a tough situation. He has to recruit good enough talent to remain competitive against increasingly harder competition, but at the same the incoming players have to adhere to the university’s stringent and in some ways outdated Honor Code. He literally can't afford to bring in bad guys and misfits.

In addition, he has to recruit against Utah, which is living out BYU’s dream as a members of the Pac-12. The allure of staying home to play in one of the nation’s best football conferences obviously has great appeal to Utah high school recruits.

As if Utah’s good fortune wasn’t enough, BYU also has to recruit against programs from around the country that now invade the state looking for talent. Mendenhall knows Utah is being recruited more heavily than ever.

“The quality of play and the number of players are really going up,” he said. “There is a differentiator, though, when it comes to who we can and who we do recruit at BYU as our own admission standards continue to climb. They’re going up and up and up.

“We are competing against a lot of the schools coming in, but we’re also recruiting against fewer of them because of the type of standards that we have. That’s always been in place, but that’s becoming actually more, I guess, exclusive would be a way to say it than what most schools are coming in to look for.”

Given Mendenhall’s excellent track record, university administrators and board of trustees should allow him to take risks in recruiting. For all the boasting about the number of returned missionaries on the roster, BYU fans want to win and are more concerned about the quality of talent.

It’s great if the players do serve missions, but the faithful have no problem showering praise on the likes of Kyle Van Noy and Jamaal Williams and any other great player who didn’t leave for two years or isn’t a church member. For many, relating to football and the conversion rate on third-and-long is what matters the most.

But with most players choosing to serve and with such a high emphasis on character, the results from the last three seasons could be the program’s future.

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