Honestly think about it. How do you choose a game to watch when it isn’t your team? You look at guide/program listing. You scroll through the scores section. You scroll through the games being streamed. Before you select one, it says “A vs. B.” “BYU vs. Texas.” “Cougars vs. Sooners.” Every single way we view channels in 2021 has the teams playing either in the title or description. I would bet a lot of money that nobody in the past ten years (at least) has thought “I want to watch football, let’s see what’s on ESPN” and gone to ESPN without seeing who’s playing first. And nobody has said “I’m bored, let’s see what’s on TV” and clicked the Up/Down buttons to channel surf like you did before the digital TV guide was on your box.

Not only that, the score is listed on the screen at all times. This isn’t 1980 anymore where they only show the score every once and awhile. It’s painfully obvious which teams are playing. There’s no need to “protect an iconic look so people know that BYU is playing.” The only scenario I can think of where it might help is when person A is watching a BYU game and person B walks in the room and wonders who’s playing. But again, the teams are listed on the scoreboard.

If this can help with BYU’s recruiting and national brand, let’s do it. BYU got a lot of publicity on Twitter for coming in second in the “Uniform of the Year” contest by UniTracker. It can definitely be an advantage. But changing a helmet a few times a year isn’t going to make someone not go to BYU.

And finally, how many times to people think our Y is for Yale? Let’s be real. We’re obviously not Utah State/some other small school, but we’re not Texas in terms of branding. It’s not like the Oval Y is some nationally recognized icon. It’s ok to mix things up.