HB Arnett’s
COUGAR SPORTSLINE
801
372 0819
hbarnett@fiber.net and hbarnett@xmission.com
1391
West 800 South –
Vol. 30,
Issue 10 – October 12, 2009
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PUBLIC
RELATIONS, POLITICS AND PUMMELING UNLV
When it comes
to football and public relations, winning still solves all problems and
perceptions.
The last ten days
have not been the perfect primer on public relations for Bronco Mendenhall.
The local press
has been banging on the BYU head football coach pretty good.
One columnist said
Mendenhall owed all BYU fans a public apology for calling Cougar fans
uneducated in the intricacies of football.
Others in the
media claimed that the Cougar coach was either a liar or incompetent, depending
on when or what he knew about Shiloah Te'o's alleged DUI in late August.
One columnist even
claimed that Mendenhall was fostering a culture of snitches.
We never thought
that BYU football could be like partisan politics, but when Mendenhall
dismissed Te'o, the sophomore backup safety, from the team early last
week, Bronco gate was burning brightly. At least that was being portrayed
by some in the media.
Beleaguered
Bronco
So what is a
beleaguered Cougar coach to do?
He could have
called a press conference and given out his private cell phone number for BYU
fans to use in order to become less dumb by discussing game plans and designing
plays with him.
He could have
ordered a side car for his Harley Davidson motorcycle and allowed media members
to jump in and get closer to his ride and rationale.
Forget firesides.
How about a Home Evening with the BYU coach? Everyone is invited Monday night
to Mendenhall's house for cookies and coach talk.
Public relation
gurus would advocate for more openness, candor or a more contrite attitude.
Instead,
Mendenhall took the proboscis approach to public relations. He went and beat
the snot out of UNLV.
Even the dumbest
fans and the Mensa media understand 59-21, the final score last Saturday night
against UNLV in
Winning solves all
problems, public relations or otherwise.
Nothing gets
Shiloah Te'o off the front page of the sports section and calumny out of
columns like 611 yards of total offense and 59 points on the scoreboard.
Mendenhall
Muted
While Mendenhall
may have muted some of his critics for another week with the win, there is
still some public relations work left for Max Hall.
His image and
public perception among some Cougar fans as an ordinary quarterback that throws
too many interceptions and can't win a big game took a hit last week against
the Rebels.
UNLV is certainly
not a big game, but how dare Hall not throw an interception?
Even the biggest
proboscises don't get picked all the time. As the newly designated Max Hall
apologist, please accept our apology on behalf of Hall for not living up to his
image with a pickless proboscis performance.
He is on his own,
however, when it comes to the rest of his passing stats against UNLV. He
completed 21-of-27 passes for 320 yards and two touchdown passes, a 35-yard
completion to Dennis Pitta and a 15-yard scoring strike to J.J. Di Luigi.
At the risk of
becoming as annoying as a nasal drip, we still need to mention Harvey Unga and
his nose for the end zone.
He scored three
touchdowns against the Rebels. His TD runs included 33, 1, and 52-yard scoring
jaunts. For the season Unga now has accounted for eight rushing touchdowns. Against
UNLV, Unga rushed for 149 yards on 20 carries.
Productive
J.J. Di Luigi also
had a nice productive night in the rushing department. He racked up 67 yards
and one rushing touchdown on just 6 carries.
Defensively, the
Cougars had a nice solid outing. They allowed the Rebels to rack up 337 yards
of total offense, but 75 of those yards came on one play when UNLV scored on a
defensive mismatch between a BYU linebacker and a Rebel wide receiver. The
Rebels also scored on a 94-yard kickoff return. The final UNLV tally came in
the waning moments of the game against BYU second and third unit defenders.
Scott Johnson was
a big part of the defensive effort with his two interceptions.
With the win, BYU
is now 5-1 overall and 2-0 in Mountain West Conference action.
The Cougars are
now ranked No. 18 in the AP poll and No. 19 in the USA Today/Coaches poll.
AZTECS
UNDEFEATED AT HOME
That sounds like a
scary headline, but it is less frightening when you realize that
Holding on to that
home winning streak for the Aztecs should be much harder this Saturday when BYU
shows up.
The Cougars will
take their revved up offense and match up with Rocky Long, the new SDSU
defensive coordinator.
Long was employed
as the head coach at New Mexico for years, before resigning to take the
coordinator job with new Aztec head coach Brady Hoke.
Long is not only a
good defensive coach, he has a great sense of timing. He got out of
Coaching and
timing will be a big issue for BYU Saturday night.
Long will try and
keep Max Hall from having time to complete passes. Long will bring pressure and
use his 3-3-5 defense to try and get to Hall and confuse him.
Hall has seen this
defense for the last two seasons at
We expect to see
BYU to try and remain balanced in their offensive attack with Harvey Unga
getting at least 20 touches on the ground.
The Aztecs are
coming off a bye week so there should be some new wrinkles employed by the
Aztecs, but if the Cougars don't go overboard with the turnovers, this is a
game that BYU should win.
We call it BYU 41
SDSU 21.
BYU
BASKETBALL STARTS PRACTICE
This week will
mark the official start of practice for BYU basketball for the 2009-2010
season.
The Cougars were
selected as the prohibitive preseason favorite to repeat as Mountain West
Conference champion last week at the conference media gathering in
BYU returns four
starters from last year and also the preseason selection as conference player
of the year in Jimmer Fredette, the junior guard from
Also returning is
Jonathan Tavernari, another first-team preseason selection by conference
followers.
Tavernari is
coming off a very nice summer where he was the only non-professional to make
the Brazilian National team.
The other two
returning starters include Jackson Emery and Chris Miles.
Dave Rose will be
looking for a way to replace Lee Cummard, but will have a smorgasbord of
selections to choose from in returners Noah Harsock and Charles Abouo and new
incoming freshman Tyler Haws.
You can get your
first look at the Cougars in a couple weeks. The annual Cougar tipoff is set
for Wednesday, Oct 28. BYU will play two exhibition games in early November.
Trinity Western is set for Thursday, November 5 and
The first regular
season game is against Bradley in
Recruiting
While this season
has yet to get underway, Dave Rose and his staff are already recruiting and
evaluating for the coming seasons.
As mentioned last
week, Kyle Collinsworth, the top prospect in
Last week we
mentioned that BYU is already looking down the line at ninth grade prospects
Nick Emery of Lone Peak HS in
Dave Rose was at
We don't think it
was a random visit.
Christian Parker
is a guard on the CSI squad. He is a redshirt freshman and is also the older
brother of Jabari Parker.
He signed out of
high school with BYU-Hawaii and redshirted as a freshman. He then served a
two-year LDS mission to Atlanta, but decided that he wanted to give Division I
basketball a look and is hoping that somebody will show interest while he is at
CSI.
Parker is only
6-0, but the Cougars will be looking for a replacement for backup point guard
Lamont Morgan, Jr. Morgan is a senior and will be gone next season.
We will see how it
all shakes out. If BYU is indeed recruiting Christian Parker it means Dave Rose
was able to get an official in-home visit in the Parker home in
We are pretty sure
that we have given the Parker background before, but here it is again.
Sonny Parker, the
father of Christian and Jabari, was a former first round NBA pick coming out of
Texas A&M. A 6-8 forward, who played two years at Mineral Area JC in
Missouri before becoming an Aggie, he was selected by the Golden State
Warriors.
He had a six-year
NBA stint.
He established the
Sonny Parker Youth Foundation and is a fixture in basketball and multi-cultural
programs for inner-city children in
Parker is not LDS,
but his wife is. Lola Parker, is Tongan and a returned LDS missionary. She and
her husband have seven children. She is also relative of the Moeaki family of
Warrenville, just outside of
She is the aunt of
Keilani Moeaki, a current BYU women's basketball player. There also were two
other Moeaki's that played football for the Cougars a few years back.
QUARTERBACK
QUEUE
Max Hall...Picky, Picky, Picky. Hall
didn't have any against UNLV. Halls is currently No. 6 in the nation in
quarterback efficiency leaders with a 162.6 rating.
The top five are
Jimmy Clausen, Notre Dame, Kellen Moore,
Despite the high
qb rating, Hall's approval rating among Cougar fans has suffered because of his
penchant for throwing picks. He has ten so far this year to go along with his
13 touchdowns.
His fan-based
approval rating should get a little bounce this week because of his pick-free
game against UNLV.
Riley Nelson...Because of the blowout,
he did not throw a pass, but had four carries for 17 yards. One of those was a
2-yard touchdown run after O'Neill Chambers returned a kickoff 97 yards. Nelson
scored on the next play.
What should have
excited BYU fans for the future was what Nelson did late in the game. On third
and long, he ran a quarterback draw for eight yards and a first down. He then
took a knee twice to end the game.
In case you forgot
the play, Nelson actually juked a UNLV defender out of his shoes on the carry.
It has been a long
time since BYU has had a quarterback that can make plays consistently with his
feet, but that is what Nelson will bring to the table next season.
It is unfair and
unreasonable to make assumptions based solely on mop up and limited action, but
since we gave Max Hall's passing efficiency numbers, here's Nelson's passing
stats for the year. He is 5-for-5 for 73 yards and one touchdown and no
interceptions. That gives him a current QB efficiency rating of 288.6.
James Lark and Jason Munns...Both are
still serving missions. Lark is due back in January and Munns will return in
May.
Jake Heaps...It was another blowout for
Heaps. Skyline HS defeated Eastlake HS 43-7 last week. Heaps was 14-29 for 270
yards and 4 touchdowns.
Tanner Mangum...Another week, another
loss for the sophomore qb from Timberline HS in
Alex Kuresa...The junior qb completed
14-of-17 passes for 198 yards and 3 touchdowns as Mountain Crest defeated Logan
42-21 last week.
Football
Fluff and Stuff
Peyton Manning,
the Indianapolis Colts quarterback, would have been a perfect fit as a BYU
quarterback. Based on what we have seen the last two weeks, he is the
prototypical BYU QB who can't see the entire field and never looks off
defenders.
How else do you
explain the All-Pro quarterback's penchant in the last two games for locking on
to Austin Collie? When did Robert Anae start calling Colt plays?
This Collie
connection for Manning has to stop or sales of Manning jerseys in
Collie's career,
in this his first season in the NFL, seems to be ascending quite nicely, thank
you very much.
For a fourth-round
pick, he has put up some first-round type numbers in his last two outings.
Two weeks ago, in
a 34-17 win over
Yesterday, Collie
was even better. He had 8 catches for 97 yards and two touchdowns in a 31-9
The performance
was seen and commented on nationwide. No longer is Collie a nice human
interest story in
In case you missed
it, here are the basics of the Shiloah Te'o story.
It was announced
early last week that the sophomore backup safety was dismissed from the BYU
football team by Bronco Mendenhall for a violation of team rules.
Te'o subsequently
withdrew from school. He will not be returning to the team or school.
In late August,
Te'o was arrested in
Again, according
to Mendenhall, Te'o denied anything had happened.
Public records
show that Te'o was arrested on suspicion of DUI and two other traffic
violations Aug. 29.
Charges weren't
filed, however, until Sept. 18.
The Bronco
brouhaha then came about when the local media wanted to know how much
Mendenhall knew and when he knew it in reference to Te'o.
Mendenhall says
that the decision to boot Te'o from the team was more a result of having a
player lie to him than the actual infraction.
In our opinion,
there is no muck to rake up on Mendenhall. If there is going to be some kind of
cover-up, you don't spend time and effort on covering up something done by a
special teams player who sees only limited action on the field.
Mistakes were made
by the player and maybe Mendenhall in being too trusting, but its time to move
on and wish both parties well.
TELEVISION
TIMETABLE
BYU vs.
Saturday, Oct 17 at
Kickoff: 4:00 pm Mountain
Time
TV: The Mtn
BYU vs.
TCU
Saturday, Oct 24 at
Kickoff: 5:30 pm Mountain
Time
TV: Versus
BYU vs.
Saturday, Nov 7 at
Kickoff: Noon Mountain
Time
TV: The Mtn
BYU vs.
Saturday, Nov 14 at
Kickoff: Noon Mountain
Time
TV: The Mtn