BYU vs NMSU Highlight Video

Happy Senior Night

Senior day or night, like homecoming, is best done against a tomato can.  Seniors play their last home game, fans get to celebrate them, and those who stuck it out but didn’t play a lot often see some time in the fourth quarter.  The 2011 version against New Mexico State was a great final home game for the seniors and some of them made great contributions to the 42-7 victory.  

If honor of the seniors, we’ll look at some of their contributions first.  JJ DiLuigi ran 12 times for 75 yards, for an average of 6.25 per carry.  It puts him at 16th on the all time list, which is pretty good for someone who isn’t a burner but maximized every bit of his talent while in Provo. 

Bryan Kariya added another 30 yards and one touchdown in 7 carries.   Matt Marshall got one carry, but he made the most of it with a two-yard touchdown.  TE Matthew Edwards caught a 9-yard TD pass.  Terence Brown didn’t show up on any stat sheets, but his contributions on the offensive line have been greatly appreciated by everyone who has played QB during his stay in Provo, and he played a typically solid game.  

There were plenty of contributions on defense, too.  Jadon Wagner caused a fumble in the first half that was recovered by Jameson Frazier, and Wagner recovered one in the third quarter.  

As for the rest of the team, Jake Heaps was solid once again, putting up the kind of numbers we expected at the beginning of the year.  He was 21 of 36 for 238 yards with one interception and four touchdowns.  For his efforts, Heaps was named Independent Player of the Week.  It should be noted that Heaps took his demotion with class and dignity, didn’t complain, never stopped working, and stayed ready in case he was needed.  It is great to see Heaps rewarded for doing things the Cougar way.  

Ross Apo lead the team in receiving with five catches for 66 yards and two touchdowns.  JD Falslev and McKay Jacobson were over 40 yards, JJ DiLuigi had three catches for 31 yards.  Cody Hoffman and Kaneakua Friel were over 20 yards.  

On defense, Preston Hadley and Brandon Ogletree had seven tackles each to lead the Cougars, while Kyle Van Noy gave a typical Kyle Van Noy performance with 6 solo tackles and two tackles for loss.  The only thing missing for Van Noy was another turnover.  

All in all, the Cougars were very workmanlike in their methodical dismantling of New Mexico State, with seven points each in the first and fourth quarters, and fourteen points each in the second and third quarters.   The defense was also solid, allowing one touchdown in the second quarter but nothing the rest of the way.  

Congrats to the Cougars for another fine performance.  Next up: Hawaii in two weeks.  

 

Cougars Accept Bowl Bid

We already knew this would happen, so it is no surprise, but the Cougars were officially extended their guaranteed berth in the Armed Forces Bowl against a yet-to-be-named CUSA team.  Most of CUSA is similar to Central Florida, who played the Cougars tough but were ultimately not quite good enough.  

The only sticking point is that this game is being played on SMU’s home field, and SMU is currently projected to be the opponent.  Playing a road game against an up-and-coming team that is angry because it didn’t do better is not exactly a fair deal.  On the bright side, SMU is currently 6-5, with four losses in their last five games.  We’ll know later, but the intangibles appear to be solely on the side of the Mustangs.  

 

What is Going On with the Big East?

A few weeks ago, it looked like the Cougars to the Big East, along with Boise State, UCF, Houston, and aforementioned SMU, was a done deal.  Now, it is reported that the Cougars are holding the deal up, and that San Diego State might get their berth if they don’t settle by the end of next week.  

Reportedly, the first snag is money because BYU has a great TV deal.  That is negotiable and probably will require concessions on both sides.  The second factor, though, may be too much to overcome.  

Reportedly, the Cougars want assurances that the Big East will keep their BCS Automatic Qualifier status.  They want to be able to return to independent status with no penalty if the Big East loses its AQ status.  This is inherently fair because it simply forces the Big East to deliver on what they promise.  The problem here is that the Big East doesn’t see it that way.  

As it sits right now, the Cougars can realistically get into a BCS game by finishing  11-1 and being ranked higher than Notre Dame.   Some years, 10-2 might even be enough.  Even with all of the ups and downs this year, the Cougars can still finish 9-3.  The point is that they are really close to being able to make it to a BCS bowl as an independent. 

Therefore, it is perfectly natural for the Cougars to protect themselves before entering any agreement with any conference.  The politics here are very basic: the conferences want to lock everybody in with extreme punitive damages for leaving, while the schools want the flexibility to evolve with the current landscape.  

We hope that the Cougars don’t give in on their requirement that the Big East puts its money where its mouth is.  The Cougars are a very desirable program, and a move to the Big 12 or Pac 12 would make more sense than one to the Big East.  

The only real reason for the Cougars to join the Big East is for the AQ berth.  The travel, even in a “Big East Western Division,” will be very demanding.  If the Big East’s AQ berth disappears, the Cougars should be allowed to do the same. 

After all, what’s fair is fair.

UPDATE: The Big East deal appears to be dead. We’ll see, but BYU appears to really be in this independent status for the long haul.

 

 

 

 

Staying the Course with Jake Heaps…For Now

So, we all knew that Idaho, bless their souls, was a tomato can.  Sadly, one of the realities of modern football is that even a tomato can can injure your starting quarterback if things suddenly go wrong.  Consequently, at the beginning of the second drive, starter Riley Nelson was injured.  He played until the end of the series with the injuries, but was taken out for the rest of the game after completing a 32-yard touchdown pass to Cody Hoffman for the first score of the game.

Enter Jake Heaps, who did a great job in relief of Nelson.  Heaps was 15 out of 20 with two touchdowns and one interception for an average of 9.3 yards per attempt and 12.3 yards per completion for a stellar efficiency rating of 175.7, just a touch better than Nelson’s 171.49 rating.  Heaps will now get to play the next two games, first against another tomato can in New Mexico State, and finally against Hawaii, which is the most Jekyll/Hyde team in the history of football.  

I’m sure there will be a lot of people who clamor for the return of Heaps to the starting position.  Once again, though, there will be no QB controversy.  Coach Bronco Mendenhall has stated that the starting job is still Nelson’s, and that Nelson will play as soon as he is able.  Heaps still has the best upside for the future, but Nelson is a bit more efficient right now.  

There are many reasons that those in the Heaps camp can cite for awarding the starting job to Jake Heaps.  Heaps throws the ball a lot better than Nelson, and has a higher upside.  After losing his starting job, he didn’t whine, cry, or act like a diva.  Instead, he worked hard to get better.  He is now following through on his play fakes much, much better, and has made his throwing motion a bit more compact, giving him a slightly quicker release.  

Also, while Heaps was playing against the tough teams at the beginning of the schedule, Nelson has gotten to play the weaker teams in the middle.  Both have losses to good teams, and have cleaned up on the lesser teams.  Ultimately, though, the two most important reasons will be in Nelson’s favor.  First of all, the upperclassmen are more willing to follow Nelson than they are Heaps.  You can call it leading by example or whatever you want, but the fact is that the team just plays better when Nelson is in there.

Secondly, during the season, it is against the “code” to let a player lose his starting job to an injury.  Nelson’s performance has been very good, and Coach Mendenhall won’t take Nelson’s job away from him just because Heaps shows he can beat up a few lesser teams.  Also, there is a reason why the team will do anything for Nelson: he is tough.  He played the entire second series with two broken ribs and a partially collapsed lung, and drove the team in for a touchdown.  

Basically, we have Riley Nelson’s toughess, maturity, running ability, and attention to detail against the arm, playmaking, and potential of Jake Heaps.  There will be a time for Jake Heaps to shine.  We thought it was this year, but it wasn’t to be.  There is no sin in that, nor is there any reason for Jake Heaps to hang his head.  He is young, and was beaten out by an older player.  Besides, Heaps has two more games this season to make it a good one.  

In an ideal situation, Heaps shouldn’t have had to be force fed the offense last year, anyway.  Most quarterbacks in good programs get to watch for a couple of years and learn everything about the offense from a seat on the bench, applying it against other teams’ scrubs at the end of blowouts.  In that ideal situation, Heaps would be learning and progressing right now, making him ready to contribute somewhere down the line.  

Instead, Heaps has had to shoulder the responsibility of being THE man at a marquee program for quarterbacks at a younger age than he should have.  And when he sits on the bench, it feels like it is because he failed instead of because that’s just the way things are done.  Ultimately, the way events have gone this year will help Heaps grow at a faster rate than he would have, but at an emotional cost.  For now, his responsibility is to get ready for the next game and do as well as he can.  Then, he can get ready for the next game.  That is really all he can do right now, and all he should have to do.  

We expect Nelson to come back for the bowl game, and then the battle starts all over again next spring and summer.  We don’t know which quarterback will win, but the team will win either way by having two quarterbacks with different strengths capable of starting.

The best-case scenario for the Cougars would be for Riley Nelson to have one great year as a senior and for Heaps to have one great year as a senior the following year.  It might seem sorta unfair to Heaps to only have one “season in the sun,” but Brigham Young University isn’t about individual glory, and it never was.  

There are 120 teams playing Division 1 or Football Bowl Subdivision football right now.  They range from football factories to schools that know they can’t win and have football almost as an afterthought, or because they know how much it means to a school to be perceived as a “major college.”  The Cougars are different from all of them.  

At BYU, the coaches can’t just recruit anyone like a big football factory can.  They can’t overlook “minor” transgressions because those students would be almost a lock to break the honor code sometime down the road.  And they can’t overlook low GPA’s, SAT’s, and ACT’s, because those players probably won’t be able to hack actually having to go to their own classes and do their own school work.  

At most colleges, players supposedly represent their school, but usually end up representing themselves more than their schools.   At BYU, they not only represent the school, but the LDS, even if they aren’t yet members.  They may represent themselves, but they can only do it by being sportsmen and citizens of whom the LDS and BYU can be proud.

Both Jake Heaps and Riley Nelson have represented BYU and the LDS in a way of which everyone can be proud.  In other words, the program is in great hands, no matter who starts and who sits on the bench.

BYU vs Idaho