subject: The Brigham Young University Cougars - Located In Utah [print this page] The team representing Brigham Young University of Provo, Utah is the Cougars. They are members of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision which participates in the Mountain West Conference. Of these conferences, the Cougars have won 23 and they have, additionally played in 28 post-season bowl games. In 1984 the team bagged the national championship in football.
When the university was merely an academy way back in the 1986, football was introduced and had a very brief stint. It disappeared until 1922. Its initial games were far from satisfactory. In 1928, a young coach named G. Ott Romney was chosen to guide the team's development. The man was to lead them to some of their first victories.
In the brief period before World War II, the team experienced major successes. In that period they were catapulted into prominence in the game. By 1932, the team dominated their opponents with an overall score of 188-50 and in 1942, they managed, after a long succession of defeats to beat the University of Utah in a close match of 12-7 in Salt Lake City.
When the Cougars won consecutive victories in 1957 and 1958, the support of the community for them was such that its home stadium was started and finished 8 years after that to be able to seat 30,000 people. In the meantime, its first All-American award was given to the team in 1961. Specifically, running back, Eldon "The Phantom" Fortie received the distinction.
The fortunes of the team improved again in 1965. In that year, it won its first conference championship with Tommy Hudspeth as its coach. Within the time of his stint with the team, Mr. Hudspeth would lead them through three more seasons of victory.
The prowess of the team really reached a peak during the term of coach Lavell Edwards. Their records for that period are dotted with victories in conferences. Apparently, the team had matured. Ironically, the record of the team for bowl events deteriorated.
The team's reputation continued on the increase until in 1996 it was able to come up with the best team it ever had. Shortly after that Coach Edwards retired. From 2001 to 2004, the team experienced many setbacks prompting the new coach to resign his post.
Despite their partial recovery from the slump in their performance from 2001 - 2004, the Cougars have not regained the effectiveness they had with coach Edwards. However, they have made considerable improvement as witnessed by their performance in the last years.
The team has received a number of prestigious awards. Notable among these are the National Championship Award, the Heisman Trophy, the Doak Walker Award, the Davey O'brien Award, the Outland Trophy and the College football Performance Awards. They also received three prestigious coaching trophies for the work of LaVell Edwards. These are the Amos Alonzo Stag Award, the AFCA(Kodak) Coach of the Year Award and the Bobby Dodd coach of the Year Award.
Judging from the teams performance in their last conferences, they may be able to do a repeat of the years under Edwards.
