Richard Briggs

rbriggs@thespectrum.com

It's a long time coming, and after three consecutive 8-5 seasons and a brawl that embarrassed BYU fans everywhere (or at least this one) Bronco Mendenhall needs to go.

Mendenhall prides himself on running a clean program that represents the church that backs it. That's the reason most BYU fans could put up with average team after average team — the Cougars were about more than just football.

Then Mendenhall went and opened his big mouth — national championships and a desire to join the Big 12. BYU fans drank the juice like they've done for decades, even handing the juice to everyone else when the Cougars started 4-0.

The writing was on the wall, however. BYU drew one of the highest numbers of penalty flags in the country during those first four games, racking up 98 yards worth of penalties in the Houston game. Taysom Hill got hurt in the Utah State game, and the Cougars showed their true colors.

The players whined, showed poor body language and anger during four straight losses, and all in all showed poor sportsmanship in defeat. It's like all the players had a little bit of Max Hall in them.

The Cougars limped to an 8-4 record and then lost the Miami Beach Bowl where they come across as the "thugs." Even if Memphis started the fight after the game ended, BYU finished it and ruined a reputation in one night that took 30 years and hundreds of players to build. The thug Cougars became just another football team.

Mendenhall lost control of his players, which was the only trait that's kept him in that job for as long as he's had it. He's a terrible recruiter — proof being the utter destruction of the team after Hill's injury — he lets coaches from the American Athletic and Mountain West conferences look like football savants, and he uses 99 percent of his words to give 1 percent of his messages in interviews.

And let's not forget that he wasn't BYU's first choice. BYU wanted Kyle Whittingham, but he chose Utah.

If BYU really wanted to be a football powerhouse like Director of Athletics Tom Holmoe said he wants, then Mendenhall should have been fired after BYU lost to Utah State in 2010 — the culmination of a 1-4 start to that season. Football has never been BYU's No. 1 priority, but each year Mendenhall and Holmoe try and convince us that a national championship is right around the corner.

Why couldn't those two be more like Whittingham at the University of Utah? He simply hoped the Utes could make it to a bowl game. But I guess that's not an issue for BYU. Utah has to play against Arizona and UCLA; BYU gets to host Idaho State and the Derrick Zoolander Center for Children Who Can't Read Good.

Bronco Mendenhall got BYU to a bowl game every year. So what? Even Central Michigan and Western Kentucky get to play in the Bahamas.

Mendenhall is not getting BYU closer to national contention, but he's also not developing honorable men. Since he possesses neither quality, BYU needs to do what it should have done years ago — fire him.

Follow Richard Briggs on Twitter, @BriggsRich.