But it's fair to raise the issue now, when BYU is about as formidable in football, at least on a national level, as a drawer full of socks, when the Cougars haven't had a winning season for four consecutive years, when they are struggling to regain whatever edge they had back when winning was taken for granted in Provo, but viewed with amazement and suspicion by some observers from other places.

Returned missionaries as an inequitable competitive advantage.

Remember that one?

Remember when people said it was unjust and almost conspiratorial that the Cougars could load up with a bunch of 24-year-olds and pick on the poor disadvantaged young fellas from Colorado

State, San Diego State, and Kansas State? That, when it came to college football, there should be a separation of church and state?

Back then, there were movements pushed by some coaches and administrators to amend or get rid of NCAA eligibility rules that made exceptions for student athletes who interrupted their college careers to go on church missions. There were writers and commentators who argued that was one of the significant boons to BYU's program, a favorable circumstance that enabled the Cougars to gain a head start on opponents.

Having so many players serve missions was seen as a football trump card dressed up in voluntary religious service. It was seen as an interim, set aside as an extension of the redshirt process, for players to somehow become stronger, faster, better.

Anyone who ever thought that never spent any time on an LDS mission, which is essentially a two-year unpaid non-vacation to a place not of your choice. It is exactly what it professes to be: church service, always comprehensive, often arduous, rarely competitively advantageous.

In most missions, which are scattered all over the world, missionaries get up early, study the good word, knock on doors to preach that word, scarf whatever food they can scrounge up at noon and dinner, between proselytizing appointments and acts of compassionate service, and, then, they collapse into bed at night, hoping to get enough rest to handle the next day, which is just like the last.

Some missionaries might squeeze in bits of conditioning here or there, but the whole of it is hardly a vast exercise scripted around preparing football players to kick tail when they return home.

The example of former Cougar quarterback Matt Berry is not uncommon. He left after his freshman season to serve a mission in Panama, where he was assigned to live in what amounted to jungle huts, frequently without running water and indoor plumbing.

His diet consisted of mostly rice and beans, occasionally with chicken. Over his two years, Berry ingested worms and parasites that caused his stomach and joints to ache. Even back at BYU, he had a group of bluish, greenish, brownish spots on his legs that he said were the result of some kind of parasitical bloodsucker, maybe ringworm.

Beyond that, he once was robbed at knifepoint by a gang of five men.

And what did Berry say about his mission when asked for his recollections between warm-up throws on BYU's practice field a couple of years later?

"My time in Panama was the best experience of my life. I miss it. I miss working with the people there. It was hard, but fulfilling."

I've asked in excess of a hundred returned-missionary athletes the same question: Was going on a mission a competitive benefit for you when you came back as a college player?

More often than not they said it was an obstacle, but one worth hurdling, for reasons far beyond football. Many said it took a full year to get back physically to where they were - conditioning- and coordination-wise - before they left. A few said they never got it back. Some said they found it difficult to rekindle the emotional fire necessary to play Division I football, after preaching love and charity for 24 straight months had rearranged their priorities. Some said they were stronger mentally, more mature: "When you knock on doors in South Philly for two years, you're not afraid of anything anymore," said one.

Over the past four seasons, BYU has had as many returned missionaries in its program as it has ever had. This season, there are upwards of 70 returned missionaries on the roster.

And BYU is scratching and clawing to rediscover past glory.

Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

But if it does, it won't be because it has a bunch of 24-year-olds who have a competitive edge on the guys in the other huddle. If a prayer circle breaks out, or maybe a scripture chase, or a discussion on Mormon doctrine, then, it might have a slight advantage.

gmonson@sltrib.com