18 Comments

1. The penalties were agonizing- just one after another. The offense looked good, but the defense just could not keep up with their speed; the BYU secondary just got outrun time and time again.

   Comment by Dan Ellsworth — September 16, 2007 @ 3:12 am

2. Geoff,
   Just call your cable provider and see if they can add it. I did and it costs me like $2 a month.

   It’s BYU of old, high-flying offense and terrible defense. Tulsa’s long bomb passes were their high percentage passes last night, I don’t remember a single one that they didn’t catch. It was maddening.

   And I didn’t think that after the game last week Bronco wouldn’t drive it into those guys’ heads that penalties are what lost them the game and they can’t repeat it, but they had WAY more last night than against UCLA. Mostly stupid ones.

   And I don’t even want to talk about the fact that 0-2 Utah destroyed UCLA. Ugh.

   Comment by Rusty — September 16, 2007 @ 4:58 am

3. I wish it were that easy Rusty. I have like 900 channels on Cox here in the Phoenix area and they apparently intentionally left CSTV off. Comcast is a competitor of Cox after all and CSTV is a Comcast channel…

   But I may find a way to see the others on someone’s satellite connection. (Honestly, I got free tickets to see SDSU play ASU so I was at that game last night…)

   Sounds like a frustrating nightmare last night where some of BYU’s weaknesses in the secondary and with discipline were exposed. The team and fans got pretty cocky after winning 10 straight. It will be interesting to see how they respond to an extremely humbling weekend (what with BYU losing at basically the same time Utah was handing UCLA their butts).

   Comment by Geoff J — September 16, 2007 @ 7:41 am

4. What did we discover? That BYU will continue to get more penalties, but not because they commit more penalties. Sure, some of the penalties were legit; where was the OBVIOUS face mask call that didn’t get called and the repeated holding obvious even on TV against Tulsa? I’d like to say that the penalties on BYU and obvious failure to call them on Tulsa didn’t make a difference in the outcome of the game — but it did.

   We learned that John Bright, right offensive tackle, ain’t so bright. Two procedure calls in a row. We learned that the kicking game is different than we thought and it’s a lot worse. We cannot even consistently make extra points.

   Further, why didn’t the coaches go for 2 when a 2 pointer would put us within 3 and an extra point (which we botched anyway) would uselessly put us down by 4? Are they incapable of doing math on that coaching squad.

   Oh, and the CSTV coverage is atrocious — rotten — amateurish and commentators are ludicrously boring.

   Comment by Blake — September 16, 2007 @ 12:04 pm

5. Notre Dame is 0-3. We’ve always got that.

   Comment by Eric Russell — September 16, 2007 @ 5:07 pm

6. It was horrible. Horrible. Horrible.

   I thought they were going to make adjustments in the half but they came out and played like the 1st quarter. The defense wasn’t there. And a lot of that was game planning. Give Hall some credit that he was able to keep up with them. Yeah, he deserves a few knocks for some interceptions. But we were embarrassed by a team we shouldn’t have been.

   CSTV was bad coverage. But not The Mountain bad.

   Comment by Clark — September 16, 2007 @ 6:37 pm

7. BTW – Dish has both Versus and CSTV but not the Mountain.

   Comment by Clark — September 16, 2007 @ 6:38 pm

8. Geoff,

   Its not too late to become a U fan… ;)

   Thanks for softening up UCLA for us.

   Comment by Jon in Austin — September 16, 2007 @ 8:42 pm

9. I am shocked to find BYU and Utah having matching records after this weekend, Jon. I never would have predicted that before Saturday. The one advantage BYU still has is no MWC conference losses… but there is always next week…

   Comment by Geoff J — September 16, 2007 @ 9:09 pm

10. What’s weird is that despite last night I’m still more optimistic than I was in August – when I was calling for a 8-4 -record.

    However it’s a big question of whether last week’s close game with UCLA and then the prior week’s game with Az made BYU look better than they actually were. UCLA getting pounded by a pretty bad Utah team makes me think UCLA isn’t that good. Ben Olsen, I hear, looked pretty bad. If Utah could do that with no running backs (although admittedly a good QB who was hurt in their first game) then BYU’s struggles last week look especially bad. Likewise Az hasn’t looked good at all.

    Now there’s a chance Tulsa will turn out to be an amazing team and that last night wasn’t purely a bad BYU defense. But I doubt it. (No offense to Tulsa fans – and Tulsa did play a great game)

    Next week is the big test. If BYU doesn’t play fantastic against Air Force then we were a paper tiger playing two bad Pac-10 teams that made us look good.

    What’s weird is that only last week I was saying how great it was to finally have a good secondary. But am I the only one who this reminds me of Crowton’s last year and Bronco’s first year? Sloppiness and a lack of discipline. Lots of penalties and turnovers. And a secondary that couldn’t do anything.

    Say what you will, but it’s still inexplicable to me that Bronco and the defense couldn’t adjust to what Tulsa was doing. The only guys who came out looking good last night were Reed, Collie, and to a lesser extent Hall and Unga. (Although Unga was oddly very under-used) Yes Hall had at least one turnover that was purely his fault. (I don’t think two of the others, including the fumble were) But give the guy credit for nearly single handedly keeping the game close under almost ridiculous demands. (50+ pts let in by the defense? An O-line that often collapsed?)

    Comment by clark — September 17, 2007 @ 12:10 am

11. BTW – unless UCLA turns around and really clobbers everyone in the Pac-10, then this year is looking REALLY BAD for the conference. I thought at least TCU would be top 25. But they were (once again) strongly over rated. Give Air Force and Wyoming credit for doing well. But they aren’t really going to be able to carry the conference. We need TCU, BYU and Utah playing well against non-conference games. With the exception of Utah’s UCLA clobber, no one has done that well. (Yes BYU beat Az, but that’s not a great team)

    Comment by clark — September 17, 2007 @ 12:13 am

12. Tulsa gets to play Oklahoma at home so I think we’ll get to see just how good they really are. Could be interesting.

    I still think BYU wins the MWC, maybe even going undefeated in the process.

    Comment by Tim J. — September 17, 2007 @ 6:40 am

13. I hate to say “I told you so”, but last week I said UCLA wasn’t that good.

    Actually, no, I don’t hate to say that, it felt quite good!

    Comment by Rusty — September 17, 2007 @ 6:57 am

14. It might be a long year for Bronco Mendenhall.

    Comment by California Condor — September 17, 2007 @ 8:42 am

15. Clark: this year is looking REALLY BAD for the conference

    I’m not sure how much that should matter to BYU fans right now. Until Saturday there was an outside chance that going 11-1 could land BYU in the top 12 or top 16and that cold still lead to a BCS bowl. The strength of the conference mattered when that was the dream. At this point BYU will be thrilled to win the MWC and get to the Las Vegas bowl again I think. Matching last year with a 10-2 season would be a major achievement with two losses already.

    The defense stunk it up on Saturday. They need to pull their crap together if the season is to be turned around. This offense is going to score but they will apparently turn the ball over on the process as well so the defense need to keep the opponents out of the endzone on occasion…

    Comment by Geoff J — September 17, 2007 @ 11:54 am

16. Geoff, I think the Conference should always matter to fans – if we want BYU taken seriously. Yeah it’s not problem #1. But I could handle a mediocre year for BYU better if the conference was doing well.

    Comment by Clark — September 17, 2007 @ 12:03 pm

17. I can’t decide whether the glass is half full or half empty. On one hand, the turnovers and penalties are absolutely clobbering BYU. The really disappointing ones are the procedure penalties on the O-line, which is the most experienced unit on the team.

    On the other hand, these are problems that are correctable (hopefully). The good news is that despite losing two games in a row, the offense has shown that it has the potential to be incredibly explosive. The really good news is that the best weapons on the offense are still very young. I think Hall is light years beyond where Beck was as a sophomore, and Unga/Pitta/Collie are all progressing extremely well. With experience, these guys will be scary.

    We’ll see how things go with AF. If the team decides to come away from Tulsa determined to focus, they could still run the table in a conference that’s having a bizarre year. If they don’t settle down, Bronco is going to start looking a lot like his predecessor.

    Comment by Dave T — September 17, 2007 @ 1:26 pm

18. All college football is cyclical and it seems that BYU fans were setting themselves up like Utah fans were in 2005. We were all expecting great things after defeating a very mediocre Arizona team at home. We ended up with 7-5 season due to working in an 18 year old QB, losing 6 players to the draft, new head coaching, etc.

    BYU goes 11-2 in ’06 and fans seem to think that the team will pick up right where they left off in 2006. You don’t replace a senior QB, senior RB, senior TE overnight, even if you have an experienced D (which apparently has been overrated and slower than advertised).

    You’ll be down this year, much the same way Utah was in ’05. Keep your heads up until next season when you get a decent kicker (the kid from Bingham) and don’t have to worry about gift wrapping field position to your opponent.

    Comment by Jon in Austin — September 17, 2007 @ 2:58 pm