The BYU Problem

The USAUltimate College Championship series boasts a format unlike every other college championship tournament—one day of pool play to set up a bracket-style tournament based on the pool results.  The whole event is a full weekend slate of full-field hucks, layout bids, IOs and competition in its purest form—played for the love of the game.

This would not be a problem, except for schools like Campbell University of North Carolina and Brigham Young University that don't participate in Sunday play due to religious beliefs. Before 1998, the NCAA held rules stating that if a university competing in an NCAA championship has a written policy against competition on a particular day for religious reasons, the championship schedule must be adjusted to accommodate that institution¹. The rules were eliminated in 1998, then put back into effect and currently held. Brigham Young University has a written policy against Sunday play².  This hasn't been an issue in the past, because neither school has had an ultimate team good enough to compete for a national title, but what if they did?

This season BYU (CHI Ultimate) posted a 19-1 record with their lone loss coming to Florida (then ranked 5th in the nation) by a score of 12-10. Finishing their season, they went to the Big Sky DI sectionals tournament and proceeded to beat every team in their pool including eventual tournament champion Whitman (Pool Play Results).  Losing to BYU 13-9, even Whitman has to be wondering how close CHI Ultimate would have come to a National tournament bid.

They're not going to go away either. With 16 returning A team players, the team is projected to be even better next season. We can no longer just ignore the BYU problem based on their lack of skill. The question this year is how well they would have done in the Regional tournament. Next year, they have the potential to be a top-25 team and earn an automatic bid that they can't accept.  That raises the question “How well could BYU do in the national tournament?”  At the end of the season, whatever team ends up on the podium will have an asterisk on their title:

National Champions*

*BYU did not participate in the National Championship Tournament

They'll never truly know or be able to say at the end of the season that they were the best team.

1 http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/PreChamps_DIII_OutdoorTrackField_2014.pdf PAGE 6
2 http://byucougars.com/athletics/athletics-faqs