Opinion: BYU football falling behind Utah
Utah has surpassed BYU as the most popular college football program in the state, accordingly to a poll conducted by Dan Jones and Associates earlier this month in which 402 Utah residents were asked to choose their favorite local sports team. The Jazz and Utes each tied with 24 percent, followed by BYU football with 20 percent and Real Salt Lake soccer at 10 percent.
The survey has a 5 percent margin of error, potentially changing the results, but the bigger point involves the declining interest in BYU football. The average announced attendance for the six games at LaVell Edwards Stadium was in the 57,000 range, the lowest since the stadium was expanded to 65,000 in 1981, as reported this month in the campus Daily Universe newspaper.
BYU administrators are quick to point out that dwindling attendance is a growing problem in college football, as the Wall Street Journal chronicled last August. But in BYU’s case, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the decreased draw relates to the product...
...With all this in mind, the time has come for the BYU administration to strongly consider joining a conference for football. Or maybe it’s time for the Cougars to rejoin a conference, which in this case is the Mountain West...
