HB Arnett’s
COUGAR SPORTSLINE
801
372 0819
hbarnett@fiber.net and hbarnett@xmission
Vol. 28,
Issue 3, August 20, 2007
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IT'S
STILL A PLAYER'S GAME
We love Bronco
Mendenhall's creed and code of coaching. What's not to like about his core
values he has installed in the BYU football program.
He has certainly
established himself as unique in his approach to being a head coach.
That said, he
still has to adhere to the basic coaching principle of football.
After all is said
and done, your best chance for winning games is still about getting your best
football players on the field for as long as possible and hoping your best is
better than your opponents.
With
Quarterback...If all goes according to
plan, Max Hall is the guy BYU coaches think is ready to lead the Cougar
offense. We will buy that, but what happens if BYU has a Ben Longshore moment
against
Running Backs...Three guys will get
almost all of the carries. Manase
Wide Receivers...There have been
several new names mentioned making wide receiver waves during fall camp, but
those waves will never make it to shore. It is still the big four. Austin
Collie, Matt Allen, Michael Reed and Bryce Mahuika will be the guys making
plays and scoring touchdowns. If you are looking for the fifth guy in the
rotation, by mid season, our money is on incoming freshman Ryan Kessman.
Tight Ends...There won't be many other
teams in the nation that have three quality tight ends on their rosters. BYU
does. Cougar offensive coaches can mix and match with their tight ends against
any team on their schedule and not miss a beat. Dennis Pitta, Vic So'oto and
Andrew George are all extremely talented and all will see action, but it will be
Pitta that grabs the headlines because he will be scoring the touchdowns. He is
the ultimate mismatch for linebackers and safeties because he has great size
and speed for a tight end and can catch the ball better than most wide outs.
Offensive Line...This is a group that
won't get a lot of accolades, but they are the heart of the offense. New
offensive line coach, Mark Weber, is one of the best in the business at
teaching technique and he has eight guys that can play. Depth will not be a
problem this year. The top eight guys include starters Sete Aulai at center,
Travis Bright and Ray Feinga at guard and Dallas Reynolds and David Oswald at
tacke. Garrett Reden, Tom Sorensen and R.J. Willing are next in line.
Defensive Line...The loss of Russell
Tialevea at noseguard is a crushing blow to this group. Despite having two
returning starters at defensive end in Jan Jorgensen and Ian Dulan, the rest of
the depth chart is totally unproven and extremely thin. Another injury here and
you can turn out the lights.
Linebackers...It is exactly the
opposite at this position. BYU is loaded. Once suspensions and injuries run
their course, the depth chart is in excellent condition. With lots of guys who
can play, it will still be the big three that gets most of the attention. Bryan
Kehl and David Nixon are big-time playmakers on the outside. Kelly Poppinga
will open some eyes and shut others with his hard hitting style of play. If the
defensive line can just keep blockers off this unit, they will be extra
special.
Defensive Backs...There is no question
that the loss of Dustin Gabriel and David Tafuna to season-ending injuries will
hurt. Their experience will be missed. Corby Hodgkiss will now play in that
spot. With the injuries grabbing the headlines, what shouldn't be forgotten is
that the other safety, Quinn Gooch, is still a major talent. Ben Criddle
returns from injury to reclaim his starting boundary cornerback job. It looks
like Jaime Hill, the BYU secondary coach, has found his replacements for Justin
Robinson, who graduated. Kayle Buchanan and Brandon Howard are neck and neck in
this battle for playing time at field corner. Buchanan has more experience but
Howard has more talent. He also has three more years to play and you can expect
him to get most of the playing time as the season moves along.
Kicking...Early signs from fall camp
show that this might be something that is average at best. It certainly won't
be great. Mitch Payne will do the kicking and incoming juco transfer C.J.
Santiago will handle the punting chores. We hope our assessment is wrong and
that Payne turns out to be a productive and consistent kicker. He certainly
will have plenty of opportunity to prove himself because we expect a lot more
offensive drives to end in field goal attempts this season instead of
touchdowns.
WE CAN'T
PREDICT THE SCORE OF THE BYU-
We freely admit
that Max Hall, BYU's new starting quarterback, has been better than we thought
he would be during fall camp.
The real question
is will he be good enough to beat
Okay, a guarantee
is a little strong. How about, we are extremely confident that there will be at
least one or more interceptions thrown by Hall against the Wildcats.
We don't base that
prediction on what we have seen of Hall in fall camp.
We base it on the
first game histories of the most recent BYU quarterbacks.
Here's the list:
John Beck, Matt Berry, Brett Engemann, Brandon Doman, Kevin Feterick, Steve
Sarkisian, John Walsh, Ty Detmer, Robbie Bosco, Steve Young and Jim McMahon.
All, except one,
threw at least one interception in their first full start (where they played
four quarters) as a qb for BYU.
The lone exception
was Kevin Feterik. He was 13-20 with no picks in his first collegiate start as
a Cougar.
Most
Talented?
Feterik certainly
wasn't the most talented BYU qb, but he was still the only recent qb to avoid
turning the ball over through the air in his Cougar pigskin premiere.
Some of the
numbers are interesting.
Ty Detmer, who had
rock star status as a backup to Sean Covey, opened his starting career with a
bomb, and we aren't talking touchdowns.
Against
Steve Young also
had four picks in his opener against
Robbie Bosco never
lost a game in 1984, but he did open his career against
Before Brandon
Doman had his miracle 2002 season, his first start the previous year saw him go
7-17 with 2 picks against
John Walsh opened
with a 17-28 night and two interceptions. Brett Engemann was 35-54 with one
aerial miscue. Matt Berry was 14-27 and also threw a pick. John Beck was just
22-45 and two interceptions in his first real start against Stanford.
Fall
Camp
Fall camp is what
it is. It is all about hope. The good news is that we actually have seen
concrete signs that the hope may be warranted.
We have also been
around long enough to know that it usually takes some time before the hoopla
that naturally surrounds every new BYU starting quarterback comes to fruition.
BYU coaches have
hooked their wagon to a horse named Max Hall. He may well be a big-time
thoroughbred, but historically speaking, he will more than likely stumble a few
times coming out of the gate in his first few starts.
That is the way it
has always been and we see no reason for that to change.
An isolated
interception, in our opinion, will not be the determining factor for BYU and
Max Hall winning or losing games.
What will be
critical in the Cougars’ eventual win-loss record for 2007, is the
frequency of interceptions in games.
Based on what we
have witnessed, Hall and BYU can likely survive at least one and sometimes two
interceptions against everybody they play, including Arizona, and still win.
Exception
The lone exception
is UCLA. Their defense is too good to allow BYU to squander any offensive
possessions and hope to survive.
The BYU defense is
not the same caliber as UCLA, but the Cougars are good enough defensively and
have a good enough ground game to control the clock and still squeak out wins
against the other teams on their schedule, despite being a little sloppy in
protecting the ball.
We understand why,
at this stage of Bronco mania, some would think that anybody that Mendenhall
designates as his guy at qb is destined to be a star.
There are even
some who may think Hall and the Heisman are appropriate alliteration.
Unfortunately, history doesn't corroborate it.
Give the guy some
time. It was what all other good BYU quarterbacks required.
The more serious
question should be, what if Hall never is the guy, despite having been anointed
as the next great QB by BYU coaches two years ago?
What if he isn't?
How long does BYU go with him if he doesn't perform? And what other options do
they even have for this year if he doesn't meet expectations?
0-3?
What if the
Cougars are 0-3 to open the season and lack of adequate quarterback play is the
reason?
We certainly
aren't expecting that to happen, but we have been around the football block
enough times to know that there are plenty of sure-fire-can't-miss quarterbacks
that do.
And Hall isn't the
only guy that needs to prove himself this season.
The same can be
said of Brandon Doman and Robert Anae. We don't subscribe to the theory that if
a coach is hired by Bronco Mendenhall or BYU, they are automatically good
coaches.
Like Hall, in our
opinion, these two BYU offensive coaches still have something to show us.
Their first two
seasons, they inherited an NFL caliber quarterback in John Beck. In Beck's
senior season, the only coaching required was to let Beck know that the
opponent was in a third and long situation and he should get ready to get back
on the field.
Now Doman and Anae
will have to earn their money and reputations with a quarterback that may have
potential, but has zero Division I snaps.
Not Same
It won't be the
same; especially in the early going of the season.
We still like this
BYU football team, but not as much as we would if we had a seasoned and proven
quarterback and an offensive coordinator and quarterback coach who had actually
worked with a new unproven quarterback before.
We certainly hope
that we will be singing the praise of all three come October and November, but
despite what we all want to believe, breaking in new quarterbacks is always a
scary proposition.
A TEN
PERCENT LOSS OF ASSETS WOULD CERTAINLY DRAW SOME ATTENTION
When it comes to a
bank account or balance sheet, a loss of ten percent would certainly be reason
for some serious concern.
The same applies
to college football teams.
A ten percent
reduction in assets would certainly get your attention.
That is basically
what has happened to Bronco Mendenhall and his team.
Every Division I
football team is only allowed 85 scholarship players per year with which to
compete against other Division I teams.
Sometimes, because
of NCAA recruiting sanctions, scholarship numbers are reduced. There could be
other legitimate reasons why a school isn't at the full 85 grant in aids.
At BYU, they still
have 85 scholarships allocated, but only 77 of those scholarships can be used
this season because of an inordinate amount of season-ending injuries that have
plagued the program this season.
Before fall camp
even started, juco offensive line transfer Levi Mack was lost for the year
because of surgery required to repair an injury coming out of spring ball. The
same can be said of Nate Hutchinson, Kyle Luekenga and Jeff Rhea, three other
scholarship players. Jadon Wagner, a walkon, also is gone for the year with a
foot injury.
Worse
Once fall camp got
underway, it got worse. In the last two weeks, BYU has lost Russell Tialavea, a
starting noseguard, Dustin Gabriel, a starting safety and David Tafuna, another
safety, who was going to start in place of Gabriel.
J.J. DiLuigi, a
promising freshman running back, didn't last past the first scrimmage of fall
camp before requiring surgery to repair a broken foot.
By our math, that
is eight scholarship players not available this year due to injury. That is
actually 9.4% of operating capital that BYU will have to do without this
season.
Unlike the NFL,
you can't scan any waiver wires in hopes of picking up players and you can't go
back and offer scholarships to players that you originally passed on.
Fortunately for
BYU, they have a dynamic walkon program that may not provide the same caliber
of talent that was lost, but will fill the numbers void and help facilitate
practice and play.
The key injury
that will be the hardest to overcome this season is the loss of Tialavea. The
defensive line was extremely thin to begin with and both of his backups, true
freshman Eathyn Manumaleuna and redshirt juco transfer, Mosese Foketi, have
never played a down of Division I football.
Moved
BYU coaches moved
offensive lineman Rick Wolfley over to the defensive tackle spot in order to
try and help, but he too has never played a down in his career.
He certainly has
the body type of a noseguard at 6-3, 340 pounds, but if we are going to worry
about the lack of experience at quarterback, we should be absolutely panicked
when it comes to noseguard.
TELEVISION TIMETABLE
BYU vs.
Saturday, Sept. 1 at
Kickoff: 3:30 pm,
Mountain Time
TV: Versus Network
BYU vs.
UCLA
Saturday, Sept. 8 at
Kickoff: 4:30 pm Mountain
Time
TV: Versus Network
BYU vs.
Saturday, Sept. 15 at
Kickoff: 7:00 pm Mountain
Time
TV: CSTV
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