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Cougar Sportsline, Vol. 29, Issue 40
by hb arnett 02 Jul '09

02 Jul '09

1 0

Cougar Sportsline, Vol. 29, Issue 40
by hb arnett 02 Jul '09

02 Jul '09

HB Arnett's COUGAR SPORTSLINE 801 372 0819 hbarnett(a)fiber.net and hbarnett@xmission <mailto:hbarnett@xmission.com> .com PO Box 50424 Provo, Utah 84605 Vol. 29, Issue 40 - July 1, 2009 Click <http://www.cougarstreet.com/products/index.php?type-450&PCID=450:0:0:0:0> Here To Order Or Renew Your Subscriptions SENIOR SLOSHINGS This issue wraps up the current publishing year. That means the weekly issues will begin again in early August. If you are counting, next month will mark the start of the 30th year of business for Cougar Sportsline. You may not be counting, but I certainly am. I remember how old I was when I started this rag. Add thirty years and in August I should qualify as an official crotchety old man. Of course some subscribers have already told me that I have been in full-blown crotchety mode for some time now. Doing the same thing for three decades will make anybody cranky and is a good excuse for the depth of drivel I have penned and produced over the years. Unfortunately, it still doesn't make me eligible to collect social security. If I had a nickel for every issue I have written, I would have exactly $58 (If you don't want to do the math, it works out to be 1160 issues.) Shouldn't KSL have paid me money to sponsor this issue? So far I have balked at Botox and face lifts, but I do confess that I now have gut implants. The added girth is strictly cosmetic and allows me to fit in more comfortably with my current church peer group. I can't see any downside to the implants, but I can hear them. They tend to make sloshing sounds when I walk. I initially thought I might have hit the mother lode of a malpractice suit, but my wife, children and grandchildren tell me that sloshing isn't the only noise they have noticed since I entered the senility stage of life. Here then are my latest senior sloshings as they relate to BYU football and basketball Basketball and Food Storage When it comes to food storage, the primary principle is "rotate and replace". When it comes to the BYU basketball coaching cupboard, the recent Dave Rose health saga has illustrated to us that you might be able to rotate some assistant coaches in Rose's place on an interim basis, but replacing the fifth-year head coach of the Cougars is downright impossible. The good news for Rose and BYU basketball fans is that "rotate and replace" is now just a theory and nothing that will have to be implemented. Despite some sobering news of a few weeks ago, Rose is now in remission from the pancreatic cancer that was first detected early in June. As a review, Rose experienced some medical problems while on vacation a few weeks back. He ended up in a hospital in Las Vegas, underwent tests and then surgery to remove his spleen. The initial reports were that he had pancreatic cancer. Later reports indicated he had a less aggressive and less common form of pancreatic cancer called pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor cancer. Rose's doctors now say that the tumor was removed successfully at the hospital in Las Vegas and the BYU coach is currently in remission and cancer free. He still needs some recuperative time and will be closely monitored in the future. As of now, Rose intends to continue coaching BYU and says he will be on the court and sideline this fall.. Initial Reports Compared to the initial reports, the prognosis for Rose, his family and BYU basketball is much improved. Now that the initial shock has gone and the news is much more upbeat, it might not hurt to see just how lucky Rose, BYU athletic administrators, BYU fans and the BYU basketball program has been. Nobody wanted to speculate on the future of Dave Rose and BYU basketball in public, but it was certainly being done privately, until the recent positive news. Here is what we think we all learned. Dave Rose is currently irreplaceable. If BYU was forced to select a replacement for Rose, the pickings are indeed slim. The first place BYU would look initially is on the current staff. There is actually an assistant coach on the basketball staff that, in our opinion, would do just fine. That would be Dave Rice. He can recruit, coach and has a nice public presence. He has it all, except membership in the LDS Church. BYU will not hire a head coach in basketball or football that doesn't have a temple recommend. The visibility for the Church in those two positions is as high, if not higher, than the average General Authority profile. It may not be right, but it is real and BYU and the Church know it. The rest of the staff currently consists of John Wardenburg, Terry Nashiff and director of operations Tim LaComb. Add To Resume In our opinion, these are guys that either would have to prove themselves on an interim basis or leave and add to their resumes with experience and success at other schools before seriously being considered as a replacement for Rose. We know that there are still some BYU basketball fans that think BYU could, if needed, move Jeff Judkins over from the women's coaching job he has held for a while. We definitely aren't in that camp. Dick Hunsaker is LDS and at Utah Valley where he has done a very nice job with limited resources, but in our opinion, he still has some Ball State baggage and worked for Rick Majerus at Utah. If that resume won't fly for Hunsaker as a current head coach, it won't fly for an LDS assistant like Alex Jensen. He is at St. Louis and currently working for Rick Majerus, the same coach for whom he played in college. That won't fly either, if anybody asks us. Neither will retreads. Cross Steve Cleveland and Roger Reid off the list. There are other current LDS Division I head coaches, but the temple worthy and recommend rule still applies and they would have to be eliminated from consideration. We aren't going to elaborate, but it isn't hard to figure out who some of these coaches are. The pickings of current LDS assistant coaches on Division I teams is slim and looks to be even more slim with the change of coaches at USC. Gib Arnold was working at USC with Tim Floyd. Floyd is now gone and it remains to be seen where Arnold will land. He has been an assistant at USC, Pepperdine, Vanderbilt, Loyola Marymount and Utah Valley. Before joining the staff at USC, he was the head coach of College of Southern Idaho. Walter Roese is LDS and currently coaching at University of San Diego. He was on the BYU staff before landing that job. There are other LDS assistant coaches on the staffs at Utah, Utah State, and Southern Utah but none that pop out or have the resume of Arnold. Gamble BYU took a huge gamble when they hired from the juco ranks with Steve Cleveland. That hire illustrated just how small the qualified applicant pool has always been. Cleveland was able to restore BYU to winning, but, in our opinion, he was not the strongest tactical coach when it came to x's and o's. He was able to make BYU competitive again in recruiting the best LDS high school basketball prospects. His biggest coup turned out to be his hiring of Dave Rose, another coach with a juco resume. In eight years under Cleveland, Rose proved that he was a tireless and effective recruiter and proved he was more than qualified to replace Cleveland when he departed for Fresno State. Speaking of Cleveland's former assistants, there may be some who think Heath Schroyer, now the head coach at Wyoming, would be a possibility someday at BYU. He is not LDS. Cross him off the list. If and when the time ever comes to replace Rose because of health or him being hired away, the Big Kahuna is still Danny Ainge. He has coached in the NBA and is the current GM of the Boston Celtics. He is also 51 and had recent heart problems. The only way we see him ever coaching basketball at BYU is if he got an Eddie Sutton/Bob Knight deal. Father-Son Deal Sutton, you may remember, was the head coach at Oklahoma State and was able to get his son Sean on staff and named as his successor before he retired. Sean Sutton lasted only 2 seasons as the head man for the Cowboys before he was forced out. Knight, at Texas Tech, was followed by his son Pat who is still currently coaching in Lubbock. This is just pure speculation, but the only way we see Ainge interested in a future vacancy at BYU would be if he could bring his son Austin as an assistant and let him simmer for a few years with the goal of the younger Ainge eventually succeeding his dad. That is the only scenario we can see where Ainge would ever coach basketball at BYU if and when the day would come that Rose was no longer coaching in Provo. We are sure that we will now have many names of LDS basketball coaches brought to our attention, but the bottom line is that if Dave Rose ever does have to be replaced because of future health concerns or his leaving for a big-money and big-name job, the replacement pickings are slim. BASKETBALL BRIEFS While we stand by our assessment of Dave Rose as a good coach and a good fit for BYU, his best asset is that he is a very good recruiter. Just like college football, in college basketball, good coaching is nice, but having good players is better. The recently completed NBA draft illustrates our point. So does BYU's basketball history. In case you missed the recent draft, North Carolina, had four players drafted from its National Championship team. Three of those players went in the first round and the fourth in the second. Wake Forest had two players go in the first round and would have had a third, but freshman Al-Farouq Aminu didn't come out early. He will be a first-round pick next year. BYU had a former MWC player-of-the-year and all league pick in Lee Cummard, but his name was never called in the draft. He will play on the Phoenix Suns' summer league team of rookies and free agents beginning later this month in Las Vegas. He hopes his play will help him find an NBA home or improve his chances of a European contract. This year's MWC Player of the Year, Luke Nevill of Utah, was not drafted either. As a matter fact, no MWC player was considered good enough by the NBA to be drafted. We like Mountain West basketball. It is entertaining, but it is several rungs below the top basketball conferences in the nation like the ACC, Big East, SEC, and Pac 10, despite what provincial pundits, MWC honks and coaches think. For the record, in the most recent NBA draft, there were 60 picks in two rounds. Here is the scorecard of draftees by conference: Big East - 10; Pac 10 - 9; ACC - 7; SEC - 4; C-USA - 4; Big 12 -3; Big 10 - 2; West Coast Conference - 2; Atlantic 10 - 1; Ohio Valley - 1; Colonial Athletic - 1; Southern Conference - 1. The remaining 15 of the 60 picks were international players. We don't see a first-round NBA pick from BYU anytime soon, but it might surprise some to know that the Cougars have had 5 first-round picks and Danny Ainge wasn't one of them. He was an early second round pick by Boston BYU's first round picks were Craig Raymond in 1967; Greg Kite in 1983; Michael Smith in 1989; Shawn Bradley in 1993 and Rafael Araujo in 2004. In the ten-year history of the Mountain West Conference, the league has had six first-round selections: Rafael Araujo - BYU; Jason Smith - CSU; Danny Granger and J.R. Giddens - New Mexico; Marcus Banks - UNLV and Andrew Bogut - Utah. REST, RECUPERATION AND RECRUITING The next couple of months for Dave Rose will consist of plenty of rest, recuperation and some localized recruiting. The LDS basketball prospect scene fits nicely into Rose's recovery plans for the summer. Instead of sitting in gyms across the country during the month of July, he will send his assistants to evaluate and analyze future LDS prospects. The Cougars have already identified and targeted their top recruiting priority that they hope to sign in November. The good news for Rose is that it won't require any plane rides to make the Cougars' in-home pitch later this year. Kyle Collinsworth is just across the street from BYU at Provo HS. His home is just a few miles further south in Mapleton. Collinsworth, who is the younger brother of current Cougar Chris Collinsworth, is ranked as one of the top 100 prospects in he nation. If you are a long-time subscriber you know we have been talking about him since he was still in junior high school. He currently says that he will be making official recruiting visits to five schools; BYU, Arizona State, Stanford, Virginia and Kansas. PREP FOOTBALL RECRUITING HOTBEDS: FLORIDA, TEXAS, CALIFORNIA AND UTAH COUNTY? While the SEC, ACC, Pac 10 and Big Twelve, along with other major conferences, get boatloads of football recruits from the Sunshine, Lone Star and Golden States. BYU has also been able to sign players from those three states, but it also appears the Cougars have some extra interest and focus on recruiting Utah County. Here is what we mean. The current roster of BYU is loaded with Utah County high school football players. Some are on the fall roster, others are on LDS missions and will return to the roster. Some signed last year and will join the roster next month and still more Utah County players have already been offered for the coming recruiting years. Here are the current scholarships players from Utah County as we have identified them. Luke Ashworth, WR, Timpview HS, Provo, UT Rhen Brown, WR, Lone Peak HS, Highland, UT Stephen Covey, WR, Timpview HS, Provo, UT Scott Johnson, DB, Timpview HS, Provo, UT Mike Muehlmann, TE, American Fork HS, UT Matt Reynolds, OL, Timpview HS, Provo, UT Houston Reynolds, OL/DL, Timpview HS, Provo, UT Harvey Unga, RB, Timpview HS, Provo, UT Famika Anae, OL, Timpview HS, Provo, UT Eathyn Manamaleuna, DL, Timpview HS, Provo, UT Jordan Smith, WR, Spanish Fork HS, UT Craig Bills, DB, Timpview HS, Provo, UT Tui Crichton, OL, Timpview HS, Provo, Ut Anthony Heimuli, RB, Mountain View HS, Orem, UT Richard Wilson, TE/LB, Spanish Fork HS, UT Michael Alisa, LB, Timpview HS, Provo, UT Kevan Bills, LB, Timpview HS, Provo, UT Cameron Comer, DB, Springville HS, UT Jake Murphy, WR/LB, American Fork HS, UT Matt Ah You, LB, Lone Peak HS, Highland, UT (was in the program until he decided to transfer in early summer for his senior season) Here are Utah County football prospects for the coming recruiting year that BYU has offered. Some have already committed to the Cougars and some have turned BYU down for other schools and others have yet to make a decision. Sae Tautu, LB, Lone Peak HS, Highland, UT, BYU commit Bryan Sampson, TE, Pleasant Grove HS, UT, BYU commit Joey Owens, LB, Pleasant Grove HS, UT, BYU commit Bronson Kaufusi, DL, Timpview HS, Provo, UT, BYU commit Sefa Tanoa'i, DL, Pleasant Grove HS, UT, undecided Dallas Lloyd, QB, Pleasant Grove HS, UT, Stanford commit Chris Badger, DB, Timpview HS, Provo, UT, Notre Dame commit BYU has already offered two other Utah County prospects for 2011. Austin Heder, LB, Pleasant Grove HS, UT, BYU commit Bryson McKenzie, RB, Timpview HS, Provo, UT, undecided We find just a touch of irony with the sudden surge of BYU's recruiting interest in Utah County. It wasn't that many years ago when there was a lull in LaVell Edwards' tenure as coach of BYU, that some fans began criticizing him and his staff for signing too many players from Utah County. Now under Bronco Mendenhall, Utah County apparently has suddenly emerged as a gold mine for Division I talent. Either football prospects in the county have become much, much better, or they are being marketed much better by the internet and BYU is buying. Time will tell how it shakes out. Time has already proven that the number of players from Utah County has always been a high proportion of the BYU football roster. The number of Utah County prospects who went on to be high-profile players and major contributors to the program have been interesting, but not astounding. Here are the players from Utah County over the last ten seasons that actually started for the Cougars at one time or another in their careers at BYU. Lance Reynolds Jr., OL Timpview HS Dallas Reynolds, OL, Timpview HS Matt Reynolds, OL, Timpview HS Harvey Unga, RB, Timpview HS Scott Johnson, DB, Timpview HS Eathyn Manamaleuna, DL, Timpview HS Jonny Harline, TE, Ricks College (Orem HS) Paul Walkenhorst, LB, American Fork HS Chris Hale, WR, Orem HS Jason Kukahiko, WR, Orem HS Mike Tanner, LB, Orem HS Toby Christensen, WR, American Fork HS Rod Wilkerson, WR, Orem, HS Chad Barney, DB, Dixie College (Orem HS) Brett Engemann, QB, Timpview HS Ifo Pili, DL, Mountain View HS Isaac Kelley, LB, American Fork HS Setema Gali, Jr., DL, Mountain View HS Remember, this isn't a list of all Utah County players for BYU in the last ten years, just those that started sometime in their career at BYU. You likely saw all the same games we saw, so you judge for yourself how many of these Utah County players were, or currently are, impact players or difference makers for the program. Our take is that of these local high school starters from the last decade, only two have had significant impact. Harvey Unga has proven he is a player, and Jonny Harline cemented his status as an impact player with just one catch against Utah a few seasons back. We also think Matt Reynolds will be special, but that is still to be proven. While the recruiting numbers of the last ten years seem a little skewed and top heavy toward Utah County to us, we have to trust the current coaching staff. After all, their jobs and careers are ultimately determined by whom they recruit and sign. They must feel that home grown is the new hotbed of recruiting for BYU football. COMMITMENTS KEEP COMING BYU is now up to 18 verbal commitments for the coming football recruiting season. Here is the updated list. Zac Stout...LB, 6-2, 220, Oaks Christian HS, CA Ross Apo...WR, 6-4, 195, Oakridge School, TX Jake Heaps...QB, 6-2, 195, Skyline HS, WA Tuni Kanuch...DL, 6-1, 285, Bingham HS, UT A.J. Moore...RB, 5-10, 190, Murrieta Valley HS, CA Collin Keoshian, LB, 6-2, 225, Santa Clarita Christian, CA Travis Tuiloma, DL, 6-3, 290, Washburn Rural HS, KS Graham Rowley, OL, 6-4, 270, Waialua HS, HI Jordan Black, OL 6-7, 235, Alta HS, UT Joey Owens, LB, 6-2, 215, Pleasant Grove HS, UT Algernon Brown, RB, 6-1, 205, Skyline HS, UT Bronson Kaufusi, DL, 6-6, 225, Timpview HS, UT Manu Mulitalo, OL, 6-3, 305, Granger HS, UT Sae Tautu, LB, 6-3, 215, Lone Peak HS, UT Bryan Sampson, TE, 6-4, 210, Pleasant Grove HS, UT Hauoli Jamora, DL, 6-2, 230, Kahuku HS, HI Tayo Fabuluje, DL, 6-6, 255, Oakridge School, TX Teu Kautai, LB, 6-1, 220, Oakridge School, TX All are LDS with the exception of Keoshian and Fabuluje.

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