HB Arnett’s
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West 800 South –
Vol. 33,
Issue 10 – October 8, 2012
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Cougars 6 Aggies 3
BYU’S BASEBALL LINE SCORE SAYS
IT ALL ABOUT WIN
Major League Baseball takes center stage in October with wild card,
playoff and World Series games.
BYU football got a jumpstart on October by taking a page from the
nation’s pastime last Friday while beating
Here’s a look at the BYU line score in this particular game.
For the Cougars it was 6 runs on 1 too many hits on Taysom Hill, who
suffered a probable season ending knee injury on the Cougars final running play
of the game.
BYU also committed 6 egregious errors; 3 in the kicking game and at
least 3 in coaching miscues, including the costly decision to run Hill, when
taking a knee to end the game seemed to be the prudent move. (You can read more
on my take on the timing of injuries below.)
The Cougar offense was stinky at its worst and sketchy at its best
against the Aggies. Fortunately for BYU baseball/football fans, Bronco
Mendenhall had the ace of the staff, the Cougar defense, on the mound to secure
and preserve this October win.
Good Pitching beats Good Hitting
In baseball, good pitching will beat good hitting almost every time. In
BYU football this season, it’s the spectacular ERA (Exciting, Reliable
and Awesomeness) of the Cougar defense that is winning games this year.
More importantly, since there is no kicking game and no help and too
many gaffes and gaps offensively in the BYU bullpen to rely on when the game is
on the line, the Cougar defense can never take an occasional game off if Bronco
and BYU hope to win.
Without the Cy Young type performance of the BYU defense, BYU fans
could say Cyonara (or is it sayonara) to this season.
Shutouts are just not easy to come by in baseball unless you have a pitching
prodigy on the mound. In football, shutouts from the end zone are even rarer,
unless you have a spectacular defense.
The BYU defense can speak for itself and they have not only spoke, but
shouted that they are spectacular. It is now 13 straight quarters that Bronco
and his boys have not allowed a touchdown to be scored on them.
Based on the defensive play of the Cougars this year, Bronco Mendenhall
is to the BYU defense as Buck Showalter is to the Baltimore Orioles.
Both coaches have taken basically no name rosters of players and made
them big-time winners in baseball and defense at BYU.
Showalter, in my opinion, should be manager of the year in the American
League. Bronco Mendenhall should be defensive coordinator of the year college
football.
Despite losing two starting linemen to season ending injuries in Ian
Dulan and Eathyn Manumaleuna, the Cougars just keep shutting down opposing
offenses.
Against the Aggies, the BYU defense allowed a very good USU offense to
rush for just 41 yards. They contained a very elusive and good scrambling
quarterback in Chucky Keeton to just 23 yards on 10 carries.
Dynasty and Dysfunction
While Bronco has proven that he can be a defensive dynasty maker, he
has a long way to go as a head coach on the offensive and kicking game sides of
the BYU ball.
While dynasty is appropriate in describing what Mendenhall has done on
defense this year, dysfunctional is more descriptive of what he has allowed to
happen offensively and in the current kicking situation this season.
That dysfunction in offense and kicking is, in my opinion, a lack of
evaluation skills. On offense he has promoted a coach who has high character,
charisma, charm and great recruiting skills and elevated him to offensive
coordinator without any proven track record of being able to coordinate an
offense.
Brandon Doman is BYU head coaching material. He has what the
institution and school is looking for in a guy to represent both to the world.
He just doesn’t appear to have any real offensive coordinator skills.
Unless he shows dramatic improvement in that area, the career path to BYU head
football coach that seemed so sure, may derail the ride to the top to replace
Mendenhall when he says he has had enough.
To return to the baseball analogies, if Bronco on defense is the Buck
Showalter of this season, Brandon Doman may well be the Bobby Valentine of the
BYU offense.
Valentine’s Day and Doman
Valentine was sacked by the Boston Red Sox last week after a disastrous
season beset by injuries, chaos in the clubhouse and managerial mayhem on the
bench.
Doman has had injuries to Michael Alisa and Riley Nelson. He has also
had chaos and confusion as to what he wants the BYU offense to be. You can also
throw in the mayhem of an unstable offensive line.
Since taking over as offensive coordinator, Doman has had three
starting quarterbacks. All three haven’t worked out. Jake Heaps is now
gone to
At this point in his offensive coordinator career, it seems to me that
BYU’s offense has been designed to accommodate the skills Doman had as a
player and not to accommodate the skills of the current crop of BYU
quarterbacks. Maybe Doman still fantasizes about the offense he ran with Gary
Crowton and wants to be ready to go if called upon again to run it.
Sense and Savvy
You can have great leadership and life skills, plus grit, determination
and resolve, all of which Doman possesses, but he has not yet proven that he
has the sense and savvy to be a successful offensive coordinator at BYU.
Too bad his career path didn’t get some seasoning at Air Force,
Navy or Georgia Tech where option football is a way of life.
The option read is not how BYU made a name and living on offense for
the last 4 decades.
BYU has a stable of quarterbacks that can throw the ball down field.
This season they also have a premier tailback in Jamaal Williams that guys like
Doug Scovil, Mike Holmgren, Ted Tollner, Norm Chow and Robert Anae would have
killed for.
What BYU doesn’t have is an offense this year. Maybe it will get
better. Hopefully it will get better.
Assuming Bronco can see through the grit and grime of his head coaching
window and discern that he has no kicking game and a poor offense, the earliest
he can clean that window and correct the problems is after the season.
Mid-Season Management Moves
Fans like to bring up that Mendenhall fired Jaime Hill as defensive
coordinator in the middle of a season due to the ineffectiveness of the
defense.
He did it because he had an immediate viable replacement: Himself.
There is nobody on the current offensive staff with which Mendenhall
can make the same move.
He is sold on Doman, just like he is sold on Riley Nelson, because both
are high character guys, charismatic and full of grit and determination. That
will work with an option offense in
The irony as I see it is that other than the glorified scrimmage with
Both of those touchdowns didn’t come through option football and
quarterback draws. They came by accident when Doman had no other option (no pun
intended) than to turn Hill loose to throw the ball down the field.
The score against
Last week against the Aggies, with just a half a minute remaining in
the first half, Doman finally unleashed the offense to go aerial and over the
top. It resulted in a touchdown.
That’s how BYU rolls and always rolled offensively. Now with a
tailback that is legit, they should be rolling over teams. Instead, we just
look roiled and confused.
New BYU Football Letterhead
Roiled, confused and wide right is also how the kicking situation
looks. Like the offense, it can’t resolve itself this season.
It will take a form letter from Bronco Mendenhall sent to every LDS Mission
President, Bishop and Branch President in
It should read something like this:
Dear Brethren,
As the BYU football program, we want to do our part to support the LDS Perpetual
Education Fund. We will gladly pay for the college education of any young man
who has a proven skill of consistently kicking a ball of any shape or form at
least 35 yards in the air between two posts that are 19 feet 1 inch apart.
As you can see by our new letterhead, we are desperate. BYU Fútbol
is not
a typo.
The world is our campus and somewhere in this world there has to be an
LDS kicker that can put the ball through the uprights.
Speaking English is not required if the candidate is good enough to put
English on the ball of his choice while kicking.
We will tutor the young man in English. We just don’t have any
clue when it comes to teaching or tutoring kickers.
Unfortunately, I don’t know how to say grit in Spanish, but we
are way beyond that point now.
Your immediate attention to this matter is appreciated.
Regards,
Bronco Mendenhall
Head Fútbol Coach
Conference Clarity and
Charity
It might be because I am deteriorating right on schedule (That’s
a euphemistic way of saying I am getting old). Or maybe it was LDS Conference
weekend which always encourages and accentuates my softer side.
Consequently, I am not as upset at the knee injury suffered by Taysom
Hill as most BYU football fans seem to be.
While it is apparent that BYU coaches have made some major mistakes on
the sideline and on the practice fields this season, I hope they can grow from
them.
I also do not specifically blame them for the late game injury to
Taysom Hill.
As former Colorado Buffs head coach Dan Hawkins once said in a media
meltdown, “It’s Division I football.”
Season ending injuries happen randomly. It’s the nature of a
contact sport. They occur early and late in games and in between. They are part
of the process. Hill’s injury could have just as easily happened on his
second carry of the first quarter.
Ian Dulan’s season ending injury happened in fall camp. Eathyn
Manumaleuna’s happened in the third quarter of the
Would BYU fans feel better if Jamaal Williams had carried the ball
instead of Hill? Would an injury to the best tailback BYU has had in a decade
been more palatable?
Again, here is the Hawkins’ holler; “It’s Division I
football.” Injuries happen in the first quarter, fourth quarter and on
the last play of the game.
If you don’t want players to get hurt, then drop football and
stick with intramural flag football. And even then, there is no guarantee
against injuries. It’s Division I football and injuries are part of the
game.
NFL MONEY METER RUNNING
If this BYU football season was a taxi ride, then the meter is running towards
a much higher future tax bracket for two BYU defensive players.
Ziggy Ansah and Kyle Van Noy both seem to be enjoying the ride in this
the last season for both BYU players. Van Noy is only a junior, but it is now
highly likely that he will declare for the NFL Draft after this season.
Each down Van Noy and Ansah play during the remainder of the season and
each play they make, increases where they will be drafted and how much NFL cash
they will come away with in NFL signing bonuses.
This especially applies to Ansah, who is blooming late on the scout
radar for NFL teams. Physically, he is probably one of the most gifted athletes
ever to play football at BYU.
Ziggy had zero football experience when arriving in
This Headline and New LDS Missionary
Guidelines are Set at 18 pts and 18 Years
Last week Jabari Parker announced that he had narrowed his college
choice list to five schools. BYU was one of the final five the talented LDS
basketball prospect from
Making the top five gave BYU a 20 percent chance of landing the
basketball services of Parker. The other four schools still in the hunt are
Duke,
If a prospect doesn’t sign then, he will have to wait until the spring
signing period in April.
Last Saturday morning, in my opinion, BYU’s 20 percent chance
jumped to at least 50 percent with the announcement by the
The choice for Parker has always been reported as not only a choice of
which school to attend, but when to go to the NBA and if and when to serve an
LDS mission.
The mission choice just was made easier, in my opinion. Now Parker, who
is NBA bound regardless of where he signs and even if he serves an LDS mission,
now can leave right after high school, serve two years, come back and play one
season and then head to the NBA.
That would make him 21 years old. It would also give him some valuable
maturity and life lessons and a chance to find a wife.
In my mind, finding a wife before heading to the NBA is essential for a
guy like Parker to survive the lecherous lifestyle of that league. Again, that
is strictly my opinion, but one that I think is valid.
All five schools on Parker’s latest list will say all the right
things about a mission, but again, in my opinion, only BYU will mean it when
they say they have no problem with him serving before playing collegiately.
It certainly will be interesting to see how and when it all plays out
with Parker.
Meanwhile, the new early exit age for LDS missions should not have immediate
and serious repercussions for Dave Rose.
Already, of the five players he has committed to sign next month, Jakob
Hartsock, Braiden Shaw and Nick Emery all had originally planned to serve
before enrolling in school.
They just get to do it now sooner than they had expected in most cases.
It will be interesting to see what Eric Mika decides. Our bet is that
he now goes right of high school.
Luke Worthington, the fifth committed player for Rose, has already
indicated that an LDS mission is not in his plans and that he will play four
straight years for the Cougars.
Other than Parker, BYU’s recruiting plans for this year are done.
It isn’t as simple for Bronco Mendenhall and football.
He and his staff already have several commits that planned on serving
missions before enrolling. Now they have to call all the other high school
prospects that are committed to see what their plans are.
Mendenhall and BYU will surely encourage those commits to leave early
if that is their desire, but if they do go, it means that there will be
additional scholarships open up for this coming February.
That may sound good but BYU was basically done recruiting. Now they
will have to start again and will be late in getting into other kids.
This could get tricky to handle.
Again, we will wait and see how it all shakes out.
BYU’s defense has been spectacular this season. They have stifled
any and all comers and competition.
Now we will see how they fare against No. 10 ranked
Sean Mannion is a prototypical NFL prospect. He is a 6-5, 212 pound
sophomore who can throw it to a talented group of receivers.
He stuttered a little last week in OSU’s 19-6 win over
If BYU can get to him with pressure, the BYU defense could win another
game for Bronco Mendenhall. BYU is currently established as a 2 ˝ point
favorite by
We should expect Riley Nelson to return to action against the
Beavers…and just in time, now that Taysom Hill appears done for the year.
If Nelson can just manage the game and not give away cheap turnovers
and touchdowns, the BYU defense should be stout enough again to give the
Cougars their fifth win of the season.
We call it BYU 24 OSU 21 (Please don’t ask where we came up with
the field goal for BYU in this prediction. It is kind of like the latest
national unemployment numbers. If those numbers can just magically go down then
we can expect the BYU kicking game to somehow magically get good.)
Last Week’s review and results…Here
is a look at a review and results from BYU’s 2012 football opponents. We
are now going to start including
Television Timetable
BYU vs.
Saturday, Oct 13 at
Kickoff: 1:30 pm Mountain Time
TV: ABC (
BYU vs.
Notre Dame
Saturday, Oct 20 at
Kickoff: 1:30 Mountain Time
TV: NBC
BYU vs.
Georgia Tech
Saturday, Oct 27 at
Kickoff: TBA
TV: TBA
BYU vs.
Saturday, Nov 10 at
Kickoff: TBA
TV: Most likely BYUtv