It sounds suspiciously a bit like when North Korea tells its citizens that the only reason the United States hasn't attacked it is because the Americans fear the NorKs' military might.

The only *fact* I know is that BYU never defeated Cal until the 2009 National Championship. It was our fifth meeting.

Here is our record against them:

2001: L•33-22 (Regular Season)
2006: L•29-26 (National Championship)
2007: L•33-7 (National Championship)
2008: L•59-7 (National Championship)
2009: W•25-22 (National Championship)
2010: L•19-7 (National Championship)
2011: L•21-14 (D1A National Championship)
2013: W•27-24 (Varsity Cup National Championship)
2014: W•43-33 (Varsity Cup National Championship)
2015: W•30-27 (Varsity Cup National Championship)

Cal's on-line records go back to 1997. BYU met them for the first time in 2001 when we lost by 11 pts.

In the 1980's we played in the National Championships, but never once advanced beyond the quarterfinals. The playoffs were changed from Saturday to Sunday in 1987. From then on we had a stretch where we never played more than .500 ball.

Does that sound like Cal would be shaking in their boots so badly they needed to purposely scheme to keep us out of the playoffs?

Anyway, the format was changed back to Saturday play in 2004. I like to think it is because we started to play excellent rugby again, and the powers-that-be were anxious to include more quality rugby in the post-season. We made it to the 2005 Semifinals before losing to Utah (booo!). We made it to the 2006 finals and have been there ever since.

So while it does make a good persecuted victim story to say that Cal conspired to purposely keep us out of the finals from '87 to '04, I really don't see anything in the record back then that suggests they were all that worried about us over that stretch of years.