I was at Arrowhead. Mizzou isn't a great team. We should beat a team like that...or should we? Do we actually have a history of beating teams like Mizzou, even in our 'special seasons?' We all remember the 'special seasons' and want another one. Here are the 'special seasons' I've heard talked about on the board.

* Regular season results only. I didn't want to include bowl games as a measure of a 'good' year because we haven't played a bowl game yet this year.

- 1980 - We played 1 P5 team and won. We beat a 4 win Wisconsin team in Camp Randall. We also lost to a bad New Mexico team to start the season.

- 1981 - Played 1 P5 team and won. We beat a 3-win Colorado team. We also lost to UNLV and Wyoming (we should have gone undefeated this year).

- 1983 - We played two P5 teams in the regular season. We went 1-1. We lost to a 7 win Baylor team and beat a REALLY good UCLA team. (we should have gone undefeated this year).

- 1984 - Beat everyone. But none--literally none--of those wins were good. If 1984 happened today, we'd probably end the season ranked #10 or #11 (see Houston Cougars, 2015).
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-college-football-byu-cougars-tanner-mangum-hail-mary-wins/ Pitt ended up with 3 wins. Baylor ended up with 5.

- 1990 - We played 3 P5 teams. Beat #1 ranked Miami who's only other loss was to a top 10 Notre Dame team. We also hammered Washington State and got hammered by an unranked and 4 loss Oregon team.

- 1996 - We beat 1 P5 team in the regular season. A Texas A&M team that ended the year 6-7 and got beat by SW Louisiana State and got hammered by Texas 51-15. Point being: they weren't very good. We also lost to one (Washingon). We barely beat a bad New Mexico team and then hammered everyone else in the WAC. Again, we beat the bad teams, and played two P5 teams. Lost one. Won one.

- 2001 - We played 2 P5 teams in the regular season. We beat both. We beat a 1-10 Cal team coached by Tom Holmoe and then BARELY beat a 3-8 Mississippi State team. We also barely beat a bad New Mexico team, a decent Utah team and lost to a decent Hawaii team.

- 2006 - This might be my favorite BYU team ever. We played two P5 teams in the regular season. We lost to a 6-6 Arizona team. And a really good Boston College team led by Matt Ryan. Hammered MWC teams (and beat really good TCU and Utah teams). But, still 0-2 against P5.

- 2009 - We beat #3 ranked Oklahoma to open the season then got trounced by Florida State. 1-1 against P-5 teams. Oklahoma ended the season 7-5.

Here's my point: in seasons I subjectively classified as 'special' we went 11-6 against P-5 teams in the regular season. But the P-5 teams we beat in those seasons had a combined record of 68-81. That's an average of 4.8 wins per P5 team we've beaten during special seasons. Even during our special seasons, we, historically, haven't beaten good P-5 teams with regularity.

We aren't who we think we are, even though it pains me to say so. For 40 years we've largely beaten bad WAC or MWC teams to pad our win total. In 2015 we played 4 P-5 teams in the regular season, that's the most ever in a 'special season.' And generally, we don't beat good P-5 teams. We just don't. So, while I want to be hard on Bronco, we probably shouldn't be. This is who BYU has been for 40 years.
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