which includes football. Significantly different than what Ricks/BYU-I did.

If BYU were to drop to FCS football but stayed DI for everything else it would certainly dip a bit in overall feel since the most widely followed sport (football NFL/CFB/HS) in this country would not be on the highest level for their classification.

But we hear arguments from many all the time already that we are not at the highest level now (not P-5 / not BCS).

If we were to drop to FCS for football we'd have some of the absolute best facilities for schools at that level and we'd go from a usual 20-50 level team with occasional top 20's to a likely perennial top 15 in that division likely rarely ever dipping below that.

Games would have to mostly be on BYUtv with an occasional ESPNU game when we play a FBS opponent or when in the playoffs.

But having lived in towns with DIII schools that made the playoffs often I can tell you there can still be proud fan support for lower division teams. For most it is only local/regional but a school like BYU would still pull many others due to the religious affiliation but the larger point would be the spirit/mission of the school would remain the same...

BYU doesn't currently have the sport my kids excel at. Most of my boys are still MS or below so who knows if they will really be scholarship worthy when the time comes but there is still a hope they go to BYU and if they don't go because they have a scholarship to pay for their schooling somewhere else I'm sure I'll be fine with that. The 2nd hope for me would be that UVU would be one of those schools that offered a scholarship (as they have that sport) and they could still be close to those attending BYU and be around those living the spirit/mission of the school...

To wrap up this long rambling post with a short summary - Sports are only one component of a college/university - a significant marketing arm for sure - but the quality of education or good/bad that you affiliate with does not necessarily go up or down because a school has sports at a certain level or not. The mission of BYU would not likely have a significant change if there was a change in level of sports programs. I'd still want my posterity to be affiliated with what the school sets out to offer...even if it is at BYU-I...