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Chad Lewis celebrates BYU’s victory over Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl Wednesday Jan. 1, 1997 in Dallas.

photo by Brian Winter

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Former BYU student, Chad Lewis, addresses the audience during the opening ceremony of BYU's 2011 Homecoming week at the Marriott Center in Provo on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011. JAMES ROH/Daily Herald

James Roh

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Courtesy photo Cover for "Surround Yourself with Greatness," a book written by former BYU tight end Chad Lewis.

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The discussions BYU fans are having about the disrespect from the College Football Playoff committee? The circular arguments that clearly show the bias of the committee and talking heads on ESPN?

Chad Lewis has heard them all before.

Almost 30 years ago.

Lewis, now BYU’s Senior Associate AD for Development, was a tight end on the 1996 Cougar team that attempted to crash through the glass ceiling of college football’s old boys club.

In 2001 — while a member of the Philadelphia Eagles — Lewis testified in front of a senate judiciary committee during hearings regarding the Bowl Alliance system in college football. While the hearings didn’t immediately result in changes, it did keep the pressure on the NCAA, eventually helping contribute to reforms leading to the College Football Playoff system we see today.

“The mental gymnastics they had to go through, you still see that playing out in real time all these years later,” Lewis said. “We’re still dealing with a lot of those same conversations. But I’m proud of how Kalani (Sitake) has dealt with it. He’s just focused on one game at a time.”

That next game for the Cougars, who have basically been operating in playoff mode since losing to Texas Tech back on Nov. 8, is a rematch with the No. 4 Red Raiders in Saturday’s Big 12 Championship Game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

The message from the CFP committee is clear: The Cougars have to win the game to get into the playoffs.

The 1996 BYU football team was a special group, led by Lewis and quarterback Steve Sarkisian, now the head coach at the University of Texas. The 1995 Cougars finished 7-4 and missed out on a bowl game.

“In 1996, I just remember how hungry we were as a team,” Lewis said. “The summer before the season started we went in and told LaVell (Edwards) that we wanted to be the national champs. We had an unbelievable hunger on that team and it grew.”

BYU began the season unranked but upset No. 13 Texas A&M in the Kickoff Classic to move to No. 19. A loss at Washington dropped the Cougars out of the Top 25 but eventually, BYU rose to No. 6 and finished the regular season with a 12-1 record heading into the Western Athletic Conference Championship Game.

“We beat Utah and were playing in a new conference championship in Las Vegas,” Lewis said. “We knew we were playing a good Wyoming team. We had an opportunity to win and go to one of the top Alliance Bowls at a time. We wanted to do it for LaVell and get him to his first Jan 1 bowl game.”

The Cougars edged Wyoming 28-25 in overtime to win the WAC Championship but were snubbed by the Alliance Bowls.

The Orange Bowl picked No. 6 Nebraska and No. 10 Virginia, the Fiesta Bowl took No. 7 Penn State and No. 20 Texas and the Sugar Bowl (the national championship) selected No. 1 Florida State and No. 3 Florida.

The Rose Bowl, which was contractually obligated to take teams from the Big Ten and the Pac-10, was not an Alliance Bowl and matched up No. 4 Ohio State and No. 2 Arizona State.

BYU (13-1) ended up getting Edwards to his first New Year’s Day game, a 19-15 victory against No. 14 Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl. The Cougars (14-1) were No. 5 in the final poll, the first team to ever play 15 games in a college football season.

There have been other disappointments since the 1984 national championship for BYU. In Ty Detmer’s 1989 Heisman Trophy season, the Cougars (10-1) were told they weren’t being considered for a New Year’s Day Bowl game right before a game at Hawaii. In 2001, a 12-0 BYU team was informed it wasn’t going to be invited to a Bowl Championship Series game. In 2020 — when most league’s were afraid to play football because of the COVID scare — a 9-0 Cougar team scheduled a midweek game at Coastal Carolina and lost 22-17, a defeat that took the Cougars out of playoff contention.

The fight goes on.

Lewis said he sees the same hunger from 1996 in the current version of BYU football.

“When I hear (senior wide receiver) Chase Roberts speak about the feeling, it’s similar,” Lewis said. “He speaks about that same hunger. They want to do it for BYU and for Kalani. I feel like last year ended well against Colorado in the bowl, but I also felt like there was more. They are playing with more fire in their soul. That’s the best part about sports, the love that is inside of them right now.”

The distraction of Sitake’s saga with Penn State’s attempt to pull him to the other Happy Valley is over and Lewis feels like the players are completely focused on winning Saturday.

You see the love the team has for Kalani,” he said. “You see it and you feel it. Kalani and Timberly (Sitake’s wife) saw the outpouring of love. The video when he told them he was staying, that was a cool reaction. You know they want to fight for him.”

The Cougars lost to Texas Tech 29-7 in Week 11, a defeat the CFP committee clearly holds up as the reason BYU is only No. 11 in the rankings despite an 11-1 record and advantages in various other data points they have chosen to ignore.

Lewis recalled a moment during his playing career at BYU that he hopes reflects in the Cougars’ performance on Saturday.

“I love what (former BYU President) Rex Lee told our team,” Lewis said. “He said, ‘We don’t believe in retribution, but we do believe in paying our debts. Let’s go get them.'”