it would make sense that the average age of BYU seniors vs the seniors of our opponents would show us as older by an average of about 1-1.5 years.

I could be way wrong. A mission has advantages in that the players are more mature, mature bodies, etc. but the disadvantages are huge to athletes. It takes a year to get back into shape, let alone getting the weight back on (or off). It is tough. And it provides so many potential issues to recruiting. We've lost players because we didn't have scholarships to them when they came home earlier for whatever reason.

Its just the media talking about something. We should use it as motivation to shut them down.