Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl Preview

When:  December 30  10:00 am, MST

Where:  Ford Stadium, Dallas

Teams:  BYU (9-3, independent) vs Tulsa (8-4, CUSA)

Tulsa is quite similar to the Cougars.  The Cougars won eight of their last nine games, while Tulsa won seven of their last eight.  Tulsa ran better numbers than the Cougars this year, finishing 23^rd in the FBS in total offense with 454.4 yards per game, and 24^th in scoring at 34.1 points per game.  Meanwhile, the Cougars finished 41^st in total offense with  410.8 yards per game, and 42^nd in points with 30.6 points per game. 

On defense, Tulsa allowed 27.6 points per game this year, while the Cougars allowed only 20.3 points per game to rank 23^rd in the FBS.  Remember that the Cougars’ total is skewered greatly by the Utah game getting out of hand to the tune of 54 Ute points.  

 Both teams lost to higher-ranked teams but took care of business against lower-ranked teams.    Both teams are balanced, though Tulsa is a little better at running the ball.  Tulsa averaged 204.6 yards per game on the ground and 249.8 in the air.  The Cougars gained 165.8 on the ground and 245.0 in the air. 

For Tulsa, here are the players to watch out for.

G.J Kinne, QB. 

Kinne started all twelve games for the Golden Hurricane and finished with 230 completions in 359 attempts for 2876 yards with 12 interceptions and 25 TD’s.  He also ran for 513 yards in 112 carries. 

Ja’Terian Douglas, RB.

Douglas ran the ball 108 times for 909 yards, which comes out to an impressive average of 8.2 yards per carry.  He scored four touchdowns. 

Trey Watts, RB.

Watts ran the ball 147 times for 872 yards for an average of 5.7 yards per carry and three touchdowns. 

Willie Carter, H-back/slot receiver.

Carter caught 61 passes in eleven games for 868 yards for an average of 14.2 per catch and 78.9 per game.  He had seven touchdowns and a long catch of 69 yards.

Bryan Burnham, Wide Receiver.

Burnham caught 50 passes in twelve games for 737 yards, an average of 14.7 yards per catch and 61.4 per game.  He had eight touchdowns and a long catch of 56 yards.

Carter and Burnham are just two of five receivers who got serious time and gained at least 355 yards in 2011. 

On defense, LB’s Cornelius Arnick (91 solo tackles) and Shawn Jackson (63 solo tackles) lead the way, with  Dexter McCoil (FS),Marco Nelson (SS), and LB Alan Dock right behind them.   

All in all, this looks to be a competitive matchup for the Cougars.  The Cougars are going for their third consecutive bowl win, which is something they have never been able to accomplish.  They are also going for their fifth ten-win season in the last seven years, which would put head coach Bronco Mendelhall in a class with Bob Stoops and Mark Richt as coaches who had five seasons of ten wins or more in their first seven years. 

The biggest question for the Cougars is who will back up Riley Nelson at QB if he gets injured.  James Lark was the backup QB when Nelson was injured, but we can’t even pretend to know exactly what is going on with the backup position right now.  All we can do is hope that Nelson is able to play the entire game, giving OC Brandon Doman ample time this spring to develop some depth at the position for next season. 

We have a feeling, though, that Doman may want Nelson to slide or go out of bounds a bit more often in the bowl game. 

Our take:

We think that Tulsa will have problems moving the ball against the Cougar defense.  We also expect the defense to come up with a turnover or two.  We see the game being played close to the vest in the first half, with the Cougars finally pulling away in the fourth quarter as Riley Nelson’s leadership and versatility makes the difference. 

BYU 34, Tulsa 14.

Cougar Basketball Recovers From Loss With Victory Over Buffalo And Santa Barbara

After the disappointment of losing to sixth-ranked Baylor by three points on Saturday, the Cougars could have expected to start a bit slow.  However, they didn’t expect to start by falling behind 14-3 to Buffalo in the Mariott Center.  Luckily, though, the Cougars still had more than enough to finish off Buffalo for a 93-78 win. 

Brock Zylstra scored 26 points and Anson Winder came off the bench for 20 points, giving both players career highs.  Noah Hartsock was in foul trouble in a scoreless first half, but came back to score 16 points in the second half.  Freshman point guard Matt Carlino continued to be a pleasant surprise, chipping in with 10 points and 11 assists.  He also added seven rebounds, missing a triple-double by three. 

And just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, the Cougars went up against the Santa Barbara Gauchos and won 89-75. Even without Jimmer, the gaurds are stepping up and shot 0.400 from the 3 PT line.  Thank you Brandon Davies for stepping up and making plays for 17 points!

The Cougars are now 10-3, with a visit coming up from UC San Marcos before the conference schedule begins on December 29 on the road at St Mary’s.  We see no reason why the cougars shouldn’t be 11-3 before hitting the road, which is an acceptable start and one that should help ensure that the Cougars make the NCAA tournament in their first year of the post-Jimmer era. Especially if we consider which teams the Cougars lost to.

We don’t think USU would beat the Cougars in a rematch, even though USU has a decent team.  The other two losses were to then #11 Wisconsin and #7 undefeated Baylor. The WCC has some good basketball teams to challenge the Cougars but even without the Jimmer, the team has shown it can compete at a much higher level than expected.

Outsiders didn’t give the Cougars much of a chance at getting back into the tournament this year.  From writers to oddsmakers, nobody seems to be giving the Cougars much credit.  They see the loss of Jimmer as an impossible obstacle.  Luckily, coach Dave Rose hasn’t told the Cougars that they can’t win. 

When a team has a star like Jimmer Fredette, the tendency, even for teams with a great work ethic, is to stand around and watch the star go to work.  And really, it makes sense.  When you have a player like Jimmer on your team, he is the person you want taking most of your shots.  Sometimes, though, other talented players are overlooked. 

This year, the Cougars will have “star by committee.”  Nobody is going to come close to what Jimmer did last year, but there will be some pleasant surprises.  Sometimes a balanced team that can beat you in more ways than one can outperform a team with a transcendent star.  We aren’t predicting a Final Four for this team, but we see no reason they can’t make the Sweet Sixteen this season. 

We plan on having fun watching.

It Always Feels Great to Beat the Utes

BYU vs Hawaii Highlight Video

Taking Care of Business: Hawaiian Style

Most of us expected the Cougars to take care of business against Hawaii on Saturday.  We just didn’t expect the return of Riley Nelson to the starting lineup.  Nelson not only managed to overcome rib and lung injuries to make the flight over to the islands, but was able to play, too.

In the first half, some may have begun to wonder if Nelson was healthy enough to play this game.  Nelson put up decent numbers, but the Cougars trailed 13-10 at the half, even with an 18:32 to 11:28 advantage in time of possession.  

For awhile, it looked like it could be one of those “anything that can happen will happen” games.  It looked especially bad in the second quarter when Justin Sorensen missed a field goal attempt wide left after missing one wide right in the first quarter.  Making it worse, Hawaii scored on a 79-yard pass on their first subsequent play from scrimmage.  

Sorensen would finally end a streak of five misses with a 33-yarder at the end of the half to make the score Hawaii 13, BYU 10.  At the half, besides the huge advantage in time of possession, the Cougars had outplayed the Warriors on both sides of the ball, but the one long pass play had put Hawaii ahead.  

 

The question during halftime was, “will the Cougars finally take advantage of the personnel differential and pull away, or would the Warriors find a way to stay in the game and make it close?  As we all know, the longer an underdog stays in the game, the more confidence they get, and the better their chances of pulling off an upset.  

Finally, in one glorious quarter, all of the questions for both Riley Nelson and the Cougars were answered.  The numbers?  BYU gained 37 on the ground and 168 in the air for a total of 205 yards, while Hawaii lost nine yards on the ground and gained fifteen in the air for a total of six yards.  The Cougars scored 28 points and the Warriors none, but it was even more dominating than the scoreboard looked.  

For the game, which ended in a 41-20 victory, Nelson had his career-best passing performance, going 25 of 37 for 363 yards and three touchdowns.  Cody Hoffman caught seven passes for 123 yards, and provided the best highlight of the game when he turned a one-handed catch into a 39-yard touchdown.  Ross Apo “only” had four catches, but two of them were for touchdowns.  JD Falslev and Marcus Matthews both had 80 yards, with five catches for Falslev and four for Matthews.  

The defense held Hawaii to 299 yards.  They were more solid than spectacular, but the one big play was a game changer.  Joe Sampson returned a Joey Iosefa fumble 26 yards on Hawaii’s first drive of the second half.  It would help set the tone for the quarter, and Hawaii was never a threat after that.  

Overall, it was an entertaining game for a national audience.  It was also a statement by Riley Nelson that he isn’t going to give up any opportunity start unless he is told not to play by the medical staff.  Nelson once again showed the toughness that has earned him the respect of his teammates.  

The Jake Heaps Question: Answered

For this week, we had written a post about what we called the “Jake Heaps Question.” As we were about to post it, we got the news that Jake Heaps was, indeed, going to transfer from BYU. This wasn’t surprising, but it would have been better if he had waited until after the Armed Forces Bowl game against Tulsa, because another injury to Riley Nelson could put the Cougars in a bind.

Heaps is a talented QB who will probably get better. Right now, Heaps has two years of eligibility left. If he had stayed at BYU he would have had to sacrifice his personal stats and possibly his chances to play in the NFL by watching Nelson again next year, leaving him one more year to play football as the starter, or redshirt, learn and grow, and prepare to be the starter for two years.

If he had gone on a mission, it would have been the best option of all. He would have fulfilled the his church obligations, and he would have come back stronger, older, wiser, and more mature. He would have had to wait two years to play football, though, and that apparently would have been too long. As we’ve learned, Jake Heaps cares most about ….well…. Jake Heaps.

Heaps will still have to wait a year to play football unless he transfers to a smaller school where he can play right away. The problem with a smaller school is that it won’t further his ambition to be an NFL quarterback.

Ultimately, the answer to the Jake Heaps question is that Jake Heaps is more about his NFL career than he is about BYU or the LDS mission that BYU football really works for. To his credit, he acted like a man this year, and took his demotion with grace and class. This move, though, makes it obvious that he doesn’t have the patience to wait for one year for his chance to start, and that his personal agenda is more important to him than BYU as a team with a mission and winning football games together.

One of the dangers of being a program like BYU that holds its players to a higher standard is that often, players can’t quite handle it. In this era, the voices that encourage a player to think, “me, me, me” are a lot louder and more pervasive than the voices of reason. In this case, more playing time is more important to Jake Heaps than staying at “his” school or working within the team’s mission.

Ultimately, the Jake Heaps story at BYU will be one of unfulfilled potential and disappointment. It was tough that Heaps was demoted, but he didn’t move the team as well as Riley Nelson, and really left the coaches no choice. If he had stayed, he could have grown into a more complete quarterback, and he would have had an opportunity for a great senior season that would have catapulted him into one of the first two rounds of the NFL draft.

As fans, we’re pretty angry, and I’ve seen many others manifesting dissatisfaction throughout the social media channels. At this site, we’ve supported and stood by Heaps despite other criticisms because we believed that beneath what appeared to be self-interest, Heaps was personally committed to the team deep down. That is, apparently, not the case.

Now he will be remembered as just another guy (like Ben Olson) who came, went, made a little noise, but never really finished what he started. In the end, though, we wish him well. Jake isn’t the first kid to transfer from one college to another, nor will he be the last. We hope he grows a little during the year he sits out, and we hope that he doesn’t blow his next chance to “man up.”

This attitude, however, that Jake is all about Jake and not about BYU, is really the ‘hubris’ that was his downfall on the team.  Why did the players seem to play harder for Riley? Because he served a mission and Jake didn’t? No. It’s because Riley transferred to BYU because he wants to be a BYU quarterback, he loves the team and is committed to the school’s mission.  When Jake stood by and watched his interceptor run for the endzone, it sadly communicated to fans and the team where his heart was. Sorry Jake, but your actions have just shown that you don’t have that undefinable quality that it takes for greatness as a BYU QB, and it’s the whole reason you never had the team completely on your side.

We still wish Heaps well in his pursuit of his dreams, but BYU will go forward and be fine.  We will be grateful that he helped bring us Kyle Van Noy and Ross Apo. But to borrow from an old folk song, “Farewell, Jake: we hardly knew ye.”

The Post-Jimmer Era Begins

Actually, the post-Jimmer era has already begun, but it has been met by resounding indifference everywhere outside of Provo.  At the time of this writing, the Cougars are 5-2, with victories over BYU-Hawaii, Longwood, Prairie View A&M, NAU, and Nevada, with losses to USU and Wisconsin.  

Really, it’s difficult to get a handle on this team so far.  They have squashed tomato cans, and lost to one rival and one elite team.  There are two things we do know: that Dave Rose is still Dave Rose and that the Cougars are going to have to lean heavily on Noah Hartsock, Brandon Davies, and Charles Abuou, with Anson Winder, Brock Zylstra rounding out the starting lineup.  There will be a lot of contributions from the bench this year, with Demarcus Harrison, Stephen Rogers, and Craig Cusick looking like the three main options.  

At first glance, the 73-56 loss to Wisconsin looks like a terrible game for the Cougars, but Wisconsin does that to a lot of ranked teams during the course of the season.  They play basketball like football, and they are one of the few teams who are consistently allowed to play what is known in the trade as “Duke Defense” without being called for fouls.  The result is that they push teams up and down the floor with impunity, play at their own, slower tempo, and make a lot of decent teams look really bad on the scoreboard.  

The Cougars learned from the Wisconsin game, and thanks to the seniors, are now stressing toughness in practice, getting ready for NAU.  Unfortunately, the practices have been so spirited that Noah Hartsock (ankle) and Stephen Rogers (knee) might not be available for the NAU game.  Chris Collingsworth isn’t ready to come back quite yet, so it could be a bit of a struggle against NAU.

Losing a player who scores as many points as Jimmer Fredette did is bad enough, but when that player was also your point guard, it is even tougher.  Jimmer scored as many points last year as many starting backcourts do.  So far, nobody has really picked up the slack yet.  The scoring is coming from Hartsock (16.8), Abouo (13.3), and Davies (12.0) right now, who are scoring 56.3 percent of the Cougars’ 74.8 points per game.  Stephen Rogers is contributing another 9.2 per game.  

As of yet, nobody in the backcourt has really emerged to do much more than run the offense and contribute the occasional bucket.  Until someone does, the Cougars will continue to be a work in progress.

Luckily, the schedule won’t be as demanding as it could.  The move to the West Coast Conference should work out well, and the Cougars can develop during the season without having to face a lot of elite teams.  They will face some solid teams, but non-conference games against Utah, Oregon, and Virginia Tech look much more demanding than most of their conference games.

If things go well, the backcourt will improve due to more experience, and somebody will emerge as a consistent, double-figure scorer.  Brock Zylstra is the best bet, but so far, he has failed to match his 17.3 point average from the trip to Greece.  In the meantime, anyone watching tape of last year’s Cougars will now be defending a post-oriented team instead of one that launched up (and made) mostly outside shots.  

Football Update – No Vacation in Hawaii

Coach Mendenhall is making sure the Cougars don’t fall victim to “island paralysis syndrome.”  This is what happens to many teams who go to Hawaii, decide they are on vacation, and look like it when they step on the field at Aloha Stadium.  The Cougars get Thursday to enjoy themselves, but will work hard on Friday, and be fully ready for the game on Saturday.  

It is important that the Cougars keep their focus and bring home a ninth win on Saturday.  There are still a lot of conference invitations yet to go out, and the Cougars need to make themselves look as attractive as possible, no matter how the conference realignments work out in the end.  

If there are superconferences with a playoff to determine a true National Champion, the Cougars need to be attractive enough to get an invitation to one of them.  On the other hand, if the BCS continues on its present route, the Cougars need to continue to look good on a yearly basis for the pollsters.

In a perfect world, the polls and the computers would always get it right.  The best teams would end up at the top, and every team would to to the bowl it deserves.  College football, though, is far from perfect.  At the top, where the decisions are made, it is driven solely by money, and the most attractive teams get the most attractive post-season games.

In a way, the rankings are a lot like the world golf rankings, but without the points.  Even though every year is a new year and every team is a new team due to the fact that students graduate, teams are often judged on their past as well as their present.  

So far, 2011 has been a good first year as an independent for the Cougars.  Other than the Utah debacle, they have stayed in every game, and the latter part of the year has been entertaining for the most part.  Even the TCU game wasn’t the blowout many in the national media expected.   

It is essential that the Cougars finish strong.  A victory over Hawaii would put the Cougars at 9-3, setting them up for a possible 10-win season.  In the eyes of the national media, the tenth win would be huge.  It gives reporters a double-digit number to look at when assessing the team’s value.  

Bronco Mendenhall knows this.  The players know it.  And they know that a tenth win is not possible if they don’t take care of business and get their ninth win on Saturday night.  

We are looking for a great performance.  There may be a few underthrown balls in the low altitude and heavy air at the beginning, but Jake Heaps should adjust quite well after a couple of drives, and the Cougars should take care of business on the Island for their ninth win.