The impact that RICKS College (BYU IDAHO) had on BYU going to BOWL games
2001 was the last season of RICKS JUNIOR COLLEGE FOOTBALL . BYU never went to A BOWL game 2002 - 2004.
"At the conclusion of the 2001 season, the Vikings' football program closed up shop.
Not that the Ricks program was on the decline. Quite the contrary. The Vikings won consistently and drew relatively large crowds to their games. In 20 years at the helm, coach Ron Haun posted a 178-40-2 record. Dating back to 1984, his teams were nationally ranked in the top 15 of the National Junior College Athletic Association's final polls 16 times.
The Vikings, in fact, thrived to the finish. In their last campaign in 2001, they turned in a 10-1 record, including a season-ending 49-21 victory over previously unbeaten Lackawanna College of Scranton, Pa., in the Real Dairy Bowl in Pocatello. It marked the swan song of Ricks football. Just like that, a JC dynasty disappeared.
The impact of Ricks' vanishing act has been widely felt throughout the state of Utah, with aftershocks touching many high school and college programs."