HB Arnett’s
801
372 - 0819
1391
West 800 South –
Vol. 35,
Issue 10 –September 29, 2014
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BYU: The Best is Yet to Come
Taysom Hill single handedly won BYU’s bye week.
With time available that normally is reserved for getting ready of the next opponent, the junior quarterback had a Jimmer-like jaunt through national media interviews last week. Click here for the details.
Hill improved BYU’s brand and his own with the professional way he handled himself on national sports shows.
Now he gets some help beginning this week as the Cougars get back to playing games.
Hill is still the BYU offense but that offense is about to go from very good to very explosive.
Most Cougar fans put Nick Kurtz, the 6-6 juco receiver, on the back burner while he nursed a stress fracture in his foot. Now he is just the burner BYU has needed to stretch defenses.
Before the season, Bronco Mendenhall said that Kurtz had been having the best fall camp of any player on the roster. Before the season started I said that Jordan Leslie would remind fans of Austin Collie. I also said that Kurtz would be a poor man’s version of Randy Moss.
His return is perfect timing.
Opposing defenses have been game planning and stacking the box for Hill to take away BYU’s greatest offensive asset which is Hill’s ability to take over a game with his legs.
Now with Kurtz back, look for Hill to do what he did in fall camp and go deep and over the top with a receiver who can actually go deep and go by corners and safeties.
Quite frankly, stacking the box to take away Hill hasn’t been that productive because Hill is that good even with 8 men crowding the line of scrimmage.
Hill still made defenses pay with his feet. Now if they continue that strategy of defending the BYU offense, he should make them pay by going deep.
It has been a while since BYU has had a legitimate deep threat on the outside. Beginning this week, it should get very interesting and entertaining.
In addition to Kurtz, BYU should also get back players like Bronson Kaufusi, Algernon Brown and Brayden Kearsley. All have been nursing ankle injuries.
Next to Kurtz, Kaufusi will be the most welcomed back. The Cougars don’t have a pass rush with their normal front four. With Kaufusi back, Nick Howell, the BYU defensive coordinator, can now have more options and pressure packages to help fix this major defensive deficiency.
The Aggies will play hard and they will come after Hill. Without their version of Hill in Chuckie Keeton, USU won’t have enough offensive firepower to win this game. Aggie coaches are mum on whether Keeton will play against the Cougars. Even if Keeton does play, Hill would have to not play for BYU to lose this game.
I have installed Nick Kurtz as a new BYU fan favorite. He won’t disappoint.
I call it BYU 44 USU 17.
Football Fluff
Last week, I said that Harvey Langi, the
Trent Hosick, the quarterback who committed to BYU after leaving
He has been given the starting quarterback job and is producing and playing well. That may be just in time if Taysom Hill opts for the NFL after this season.
It is not out of the question that Hill could choose the NFL over a senior season. His clock is ticking. He is 24 and married. A great year this season will put him in position to be drafted by a team in the NFL and make some money.
For those that think he should stick around for his senior year and then make more money, ask Matt Leinart of USC how that worked out for him.
It will be interesting to see how this turns out. We would all love to
see Hill back with the likes of
Speaking of future teams on the BYU schedule, the Cougars inked a
four-game deal with UMass. Two games will be played in
Butts, Beer and Brisket
Just a few years ago, I remember writing that college basketball was
headed towards becoming a studio sport where games were mostly played in front
of cameras and not fans in the seats.
By that, I meant that the sport had become oversaturated with too many
games on too many days available for viewing. Why venture out in the snow and
cold when you could sit in front of your screen with your feet up and food in
front of you?
Could it be that many football schools no longer have butts in their
seats because they sold their souls and those same seats to TV networks?
Economically, it is a no-brainer tradeoff that enables schools to
survive financially. BYU is no different. They need their games televised to
significantly supplement their revenue needed to support all the other non
revenue sports.
Like other schools, they look to be trading filled seats for filled
financial coffers that TV deals offer.
It is obvious that BYU is not filling their football stadium anymore.
Sure, the Utah and Utah State games will be in demand along with teams like
Texas that have a national brand and a fan base that will buy tickets
regardless of where the Horns play.
How do they do it?
You can point to those same national brand schools that still fill
their stadiums and ask how they can do it.
In my opinion, it is because of beer and brisket. These schools are
fulfilling a cultural need of their fan bases to spend an entire day
socializing with beer and barbeque. The football games are nice, but not
necessary. They are the excuse for continuing their cultural experiences.
Cougar football doesn’t fit the cultural needs of its patrons,
almost all of whom are LDS. Here are my lists of why attendance is dwindling
and some ideas for fixing the issue.
Problems: Traffic Time and Tivo. Traffic to and from the stadium is now
much worse than it was just a few years ago. Tivo and other technological
advances have made watching the game at home much more enjoyable. The food is
better at home and so is the access to bathrooms. BYU’s game day
atmosphere will never be like it is at other schools. Rah Rah and rowdiness at
other schools is just a euphemism for inebriation.
Time is the other killer for a full stadium for BYU. Most fans of other
schools make football the focus of their weekend. If a game takes a full day in
which to enjoy and inebriate, there is always Sunday to recuperate and recover.
That doesn’t apply for BYU fans with their Sunday schedules
planned for anything but recuperation and recovery. For 95 percent of college
football fans, football is their religion and they worship all weekend long.
So what can BYU do to insure their stadium is full?
They are already doing the most important thing. They are winning. If
your product is good enough, for long enough, people will patronize and
purchase it. Quite frankly, the BYU football product was mediocre the last few
seasons and it will take a few very good years to recover from that ultimate
marketing failure.
Put Patrons in Pews
If brisket and beer isn’t part of the BYU football culture and
will never be, then here are some ideas to parlay the BYU cultural to Cougar
football and hopefully put more patrons in the pews. You can decide if these
ideas are feasible or farcical.
1. Instead of cases of beer in the stadium parking lots, how about
cases of canned goods. There’s northing like a good case lot sale to
bring out the frugal football fan and his wife. Buy three cases of green beans
from Macey’s, and get a free south end zone ticket for today’s
game.
2. Market BYU football with BYU Education Week. Buy season tickets for
the hubby and get a free week pass to Education week for the wife. Or vice
versa.
3. If you have sold out to television, don’t punish those buying
actual tickets by taking away their television for games. Get Wi-Fi for the
stadium and
4. Never forget that it’s all about football. No promotion will
sell seats like good players and a good team can. It’s all about getting
good players and keeping them coming. Do that and selling out a stadium will
take care of itself.
Stalking the SOS
We are still stalking BYU’s Strength of Schedule to see if there will be a realistic chance of the Cougars landing a spot on the big dance card for New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.
Here is how the teams on BYU schedule fared last week:
UConn; 1-4, lost 36-10
to
Houston; 2-2, bye, next
up:
Virginia; 3-2, beat
Central Florida; 1-2,
bye, next up:
Middle Tennessee; 3-2, beat Old Dominion 41-28: Southern Miss
UNLV; 1-4, lost
34-17 to SDSU, next up:
Cal; 3-1, beat
Poll Prognosticating
In the latest polls, BYU is now No. 18 in the AP and No. 19 in the
Here are some games set for this coming week involving teams ranked in
front of or just behind (
No. 3
No. 4
No. 6
No. 7 Baylor at
No. 8 UCLA vs.
No. 14 Stanford at No. 9 Notre Dame
No. 19 Nebraska at No. 10 Michigan State (somebody has to lose)
No. 15 LSU at No. 5
TV Timetable
BYU vs.
Friday, October 3 at
Kickoff: 8:15 pm MDT
TV: ESPN
BYU vs.
Thursday, October 9 at
Kickoff: 5:30 pm MDT
TV: ESPN
BYU vs.
Saturday, October 18 at
Kickoff: TBD
TV: TBD
BYU vs.
Friday, October 24 at
Kickoff: 7:00 pm MDT
TV: ESPN or ESPN2