RIP LaVell Edwards

[BitterYoungMatador2]

ESPN reporting

 

[SportsHack1818]

Forget ESPN. I'll give it to you straight from here in Utah. Stories up on all the local media.

 

[SportsHack1818]

And, of course, RIP to every BYU football fan's favorite stone-faced grandpa. This news is already hitting people extremely hard in the Beehive State. For all the talk about how awful 2016 has been and others then arguing that hey, all these celebrity deaths don't really affect anyone ... this one literally affects millions -- every BYU football fan since the 1970s.

 

[CD Boogie]

But was he more famous than Peaches Geldof?

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

No, but he was a father figure to many.

 

[HanSenSE]

A1 in Utah ... but anywhere else?

 

[poindexter]

No, but he was a father figure to many.

I thought that was Brigham Young.

 

[BTExpress]

A1 in Utah ... but anywhere else?

Can't imagine it being B1, C1 or D1 anywhere else.

 

[SpeedTchr]

Maybe he and Unitas can get together and talk QB'ing.

 

[Roscablo]

Can't imagine it being B1, C1 or D1 anywhere else.

I don't know. I think there are a lot of places where it would be sports front worthy. Especially old WAC areas where he dominated their schools for years and years.

 

[cyclingwriter2]

I loved his pass happy BYU teams in the 1980s. The Wilson, McMahon, Young, Bosco, Detmer teams were fun as hell to watch.

 

[ChrisLong]

No, but he was a father figure to many.

A few years ago I remember someone estimated he had attended 7,000 weddings. And his comment was, "That's a lot of toaster ovens."

 

[LanceyHoward]

I think Edwards is one of the most underrated and influential college coaches of all time. He turned BYU into a national power. And he was one of the very first college coaches to show that you could win a lot of games throwing the ball. Before he came a long the thinking was that if you threw a lot you would lose a couple of games a year due to the quarterback having a bad day, turnovers or bad weather. Offensively he laid a lot of the groundwork for the move way from three yards and a cloud of dust.

Edwards also seemed like a nice, well-adjusted person which is not a requirement to be a successful football coach.