I work in higher education and have talked with business school deans at several universities across the country. They all want to be known as a national university so that more students will come. Attendance is down at many universities. I ask them how they can become a national university and they all say that sadly the only way to gain a national reputation is through sports and mostly football.

As Michael Scott says, “ game, set, point, match”

PS a few select universities like Harvard can gain a national reputation without sports. Sadly for us, BYU will probably never lack students wanting to go there so administrators won’t feel as much pressure to push football.

I think this is a mistake because that approach just relies on BYU’s current base and doesn’t expand BYUs reputation.