Salt Lake Tribune: BYU Football Notes: Vegas a springboard for next year

By Patrick Kinahan

The Salt Lake Tribune 

Some time during next month's BCS bowl games, probably in the national championship game Jan. 4, the postseason records of all the Division I-A conferences will flash across the screen.   One way for a conference to gain national respect is to win bowl games. Four Mountain West teams will play in bowl games, beginning with Brigham Young against California in next Thursday's Las Vegas Bowl.   "When I look at BYU, I don't look at it as, 'OK, we're a team that's part of the Mountain West Conference,' " said junior running back Curtis Brown. "I believe that we're a team all on our own, because we don't do things like any of the other teams in our conference. We're an individual team that has our own standards. We want to separate ourselves from everybody.   "We want to be known as BYU, not BYU from the Mountain West Conference. So when we go out and we play on national television, we just want to represent BYU and everything that BYU stands for."

With eight starters returning on offense, Brown wants to use the Las Vegas Bowl as a springboard to next season's success.   The graduating seniors are receiver Todd Watkins, center Lance Reynolds and guard Brian Sanders.  "We've seen the success that we've had doing the things that we're supposed to do," Brown said. "Next year, there'll be no excuses. I'll come out next year with the same confidence I had this year.  "There's no reason why we can't go undefeated next year. A lot of programs, if they feel like they're going in the right direction, that should be their attitude."