HB Arnett's 801 372 - 0819 hbarnett@fiber.net 1391 West 800 South - Orem, Utah 84058 Vol. 33, Issue 5 - August 31, 2012 Click <http://www.cougarstreet.com/products/index.php?type=450&PCID=450:0:0:0:0> Here To Order Or Renew Your Subscriptions TOO MUCH RILEY! REALLY? BYU laid a 30-6 licking on Mike Leach and his Washington State Cougars Thursday night at LaVell Edwards Stadium. The high flying and high profile offensive guru of a coach hasn't been in hiding during the last two years while out of coaching. He probably now wishes he had opted for the Witness Protection program instead of Wazzu. The last two years have been spent diving in Key West and probably taking depositions for his defamation law suit against ESPN and other assorted parties. Depose this. BYU dominated WSU in all phases of the game, except pre-game hype and hope from WSU fans and media. The Cougar (BYU) defense was spectacular. The BYU offense was good and will get better. That is a scary thought. The kicking game is still questionable in my mind and the running game can use some refining, but it was a big win anyway you cut it. Offensively, the BYU blue Cougars accounted for 426 yards of offense and three touchdowns. The BYU defense stifled and stuffed the Wazzu offense by holding them to 224 yards. When it comes to Riley Nelson and his quarterback play, not only against WSU, but last year, we take our tone and tenor from that trial lawyer who famously said "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit." Nelson has acquitted himself extremely well. We may not think he has the grand gloves of a big time throwing quarterback. We may not think that he will survive the physical beatings he takes. Like those infamous gloves, Nelson doesn't fit the prototypical BYU quarterback mold. All he does is win and make plays. He is the gloves and gears of BYU's offense. I cringe along with all other fans every time he takes off and lowers his head and find myself muttering to myself; "He won't last four games." That's why I'm taking my gloves off and discarding the Johnny Cochrane mantra of ill-fitting mittens for the Austin Collie mantra of: "Magic Happens". Give Nelson the ball. Let him do what he does best and make plays. Turn him loose to be the leader of the parade and this season. If this is going to be a magical season, Nelson will wield the wand and keep getting up from the mayhem, chaos and collisions that he seems destined to take. Having Nelson reel in his competitive and playmaking nature isn't the answer. We saw the alternative to Nelson and his style of play early last year. It didn't work. Nelson is. Too much Nelson is a good thing, no matter how much it makes us cringe when we see it. As long as he is wearing the gloves that could have the Cougars gliding to a magical season, in my book he is guilty and as good as gold bullion in the BYU bank. NAMES AND GAMES Last Weekend It was this guy.Luke Worthington, 6-9, 240, Homestead HS, Mequon, WI.Dave Rose and his staff had Worthington on campus last weekend for an official visit. Worthington, who is LDS, has eliminated Butler and Stanford from consideration and has his final four choices of college down to BYU, Davidson, Penn and Princeton. He started to make some big noise this past summer with his AAU play with Playground Elite, based out of Wisconsin. Dave Rose and his crew have been on Worthington for over two years, but got a really close look at him this past summer when they were at Homestead HS in Mequon, WI, watching the Utah Reign play in the 2012 NY2LA Under Armor Summer Jam AAU tournament. The Reign is the local team which includes, Eric Mica, Nick Emery and T.J. Haws, all BYU commits. Worthington's Playground Elite AAU team was also in the tournament in which most of the games over the five day period were played on Worthington's Homestead HS home court. Thanks to a subscriber for the heads up on Worthington's visit. He was seen with the BYU coaches at Tucanos. This Weekend, It was These Guys.Jabari Parker, the 6-8 LDS phenom from Chicago was back on the BYU campus for another unofficial visit on Thursday. You might remember that he was here two weeks ago for a short visit with BYU admission officials and Business School professors. This time he met with Dave Rose. There are photos of the two at the Legends Grill together that have been posted and tweeted by those who saw them. Parker also took in the BYU-WSU game. Rose has a recruiting history of trying to get his top targeted guys on campus for a visit when there is a marquee football game on the weekend with school in session and students in the stands. That was what happened yesterday. Also in for the game and official recruiting visits were Lone Peak HS teammates and top 100 ranked national players, Nick Emery and Eric Mika. While both have been committed to the Cougars for some time now, they got the same regal treatment as Parker and all other top tier targets that Rose recruits. Keilani Unga, the 6-2 forward, is back on the BYU's women's basketball roster. Her husband, Harvey Unga, was cut by the Chicago Bears, last Monday. That is when we noticed her back on the official roster. The Unga's have two children. With the graduation of Kristen Riley, Jeff Judkins needs more size and an inside scoring presence. That is what Unga will provide. The addition of Unga also may explain why Alexis Kaufusi was not retained on scholarship. You may remember that story. Kaufusi, who was in remission from cancer, was given a medical waiver which would allow her to continue to have her education paid for, but she wanted to play her last season. She was not going to see the court at BYU and instead will finish her eligibility at Dixie State after laying out this coming season. BYU probably needed a scholarship for Unga. Total supposition on my part, but Moeaki-Unga back at BYU certainly doesn't hurt in the effort to sign Jabari Parker. Family Trees.Before she was Keilani Unga, she was Keilani Moeaki. She had two brothers play football for BYU and a third brother, Tony Moeaki, play for Iowa. He is now in his third year with the Kansas City Chiefs. Her father, Sione Moeaki, played on the National Championship Rugby Team at BYU. Her mother, Lose Moeaki, is an aunt to Folola "Lola" Finau Parker, the mother of Jabari Parker, who at the time she met her husband, Sonny Parker, was a student at BYU. Lola Parker's grandfather was the second man baptized by LDS missionaries in Tonga. Speaking of second, Lola and Sonny's son, Jabari, made his second unofficial visit to BYU this week. It was part of the annual family vacation to visit relatives in Utah and Northern California. Jabari's grandparents reside in Salt Lake City. Mike Leach, the head coach of Washington State was rudely welcomed back to Provo by BYU and a 30-6 whipping. The trip to Provo did allow Leach to reunite with some branches of his family tree. Thanks to a nice article by Dick <http://deseretnews.com/article/765600228/Younger-brother-Tim-Leach-to-welco me-Mike-Leach-to-BYU.html> Harmon at the Deseret News, Leach's family tree through BYU and Utah was chronicled. Questions Answered.It was Forrest Gump who said life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get. Same with football and first games. There were some questions and now we know some of the answers. Taysom Hill is not going to redshirt and you can see that BYU offensive coaches are going to get him groomed for next season. Any production and big plays in that grooming process will be a bonus. Bronson Kaufusi is not redshirting. For a guy who never showed up on the depth chart released earlier this week and for a guy who just arrived home from New Zealand and an LDS mission two weeks before the start of fall camp, he sure saw a lot of snaps. Talent and a big upside will get you on the field. Jamaal Williams is not redshirting. If this was the NFL, BYU should put the franchise tag on this kid. He saw only mop up action, but he will have to see more than that if the Cougars are going to reach their aspirations. See below for why. The Running Game against WSU was okay, but not good enough to beat quality defenses. What's not to like about 123 yards rushing? Plenty. Against good defenses and in games that are going to be about field position and time of possession and running the clock to maintain a slim lead, it has to get better, especially between the tackles. Most of BYU's rushing yards came off play action or change of pace action. When the Cougars lined up in a double tight end formation with a fullback in front of a tailback and tried to run the ball between the tackles, they were average. We like Michael Alisa and David Foote. They both produced against WSU. But neither has proven yet that they are great at running the ball for tough short yardage when the defense knows they are coming right at them. It is way too early to say that Jamaal Williams can do that, but in his cameo appearance, he showed me that he may be the feature type back that can break big plays and also move the chains with tough yards between the tackles. When the Cougar offensive line gets down in a three-point stance and Nelson is under center and Alisa or Foote are lined up deep behind a fullback, yards in the running game are still scarce. Did we mention that a good between-the-tackles run game will also take away the beatings that Riley Nelson will have to endure this season. Teams are going to go after him. He won't back down. That means that something has to give and most likely it will be the health of Nelson. Pac-12 Referees.When the announcing crew makes it a point to pontificate about the officiating crew being from the Pac-12 after questionable calls, it says plenty about their performance. In fact, on several series they seemed to even be a cut below the current and controversial NFL replacement refs. On both WSU scoring drives that ended in field goals, they were the WSU Cougars' offense. WSU's first field goal was a 10 play drive of 57 yards of which 30 yards were two back-to-back 15-yard personal fouls on BYU's Joe Sampson and Jordan Johnson. I admit I am a little biases but it appeared that the officiating crew also had a Pac 12 bias. I will always feel that way based on how they hosed Oklahoma at Oregon a few years back. The second scoring drive also came in the second quarter for the WSU Cougars. It was a 46 yard drive that ended in a field goal. Of those 46 yards, 27 were the result of a very, very questionable 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Spencer Hadley and a cheesy hand to the face mask call against Ziggy Ansah. I admit my bias. It is real, as real as some of the biased or botched calls of this Pac-12 crew. BYU connected football players at Utah or Utah State.There was an interesting piece in the Deseret <http://deseretnews.com/top/936/0/Returned-missionaries-in-2012-FBS-college- football.html> News a few days ago detailing LDS returned missionaries playing football and D-1 schools. We found it interesting how many BYU connected players are playing elsewhere. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have a daughter attending Utah. She is the second of two daughters that chose anywhere but BYU. The first went to Arizona in Tucson. Also in the full disclosure mode, Gannon Conway is a defensive lineman at Arizona State. He is a brother-in-law to my nephew. Kala Friel is a tackle at Utah. He is the brother to BYU tight end Kaneakua Friel. Jake Murphy is a tight end at Utah, His dad is Dale Murphy, the former MLB player. Trevor Reilly is a linebacker at Utah. His brother Drew, just transferred to BYU from CSU and is redshirting this season. Dallin Rogers is a tight end at Utah. His sister played volleyball for BYU and his parents are BYU grads. Westlee Tonga is a te/fb at Utah. His brother-in-law, Reno Mahe played at BYU. Andrew Santiago is listed as a freshman wide receiver at Utah. He is the nephew to Brian Santiago, a BYU athletic administrator. Jason Whittingham is a freshman linebacker at Utah. His dad and grandfather both played at BYU. Cash For Clunkers.It was just a while back that the government had a program designed to take old gas guzzlers off the road. The official name of the program was The Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), but quickly became known as "Cash for Clunkers". It was a $3 billion U.S. federal scrappage program intended to provide economic incentives to U.S. residents to purchase a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle when trading in a less fuel-efficient vehicle. The program was promoted as providing stimulus to the economy by boosting auto sales, while putting safer, cleaner and more fuel-efficient vehicles on the roadways. A study published after the program by researchers at the University of Delaware concluded that for each vehicle trade, the program had a net cost of approximately $2,000, with total costs outweighing all benefits by $1.4 billion. Based on what Washington State put on the field last night in Provo, it appears the "Cash for Clunkers" deal is back. One game doesn't make a trend or break the bank, but when Mike Leach was hired by WSU athletic director Bill Moos, he put Leach on the payroll for $2.25 million per year. That works out to be $187,500 per game that Leach earns on a 12-game schedule. Broken down farther, that works out to be $46,875 per quarter. Do you think Moos and WSU fans and boosters thought they got their money's worth last night? We think not when taken in context of the previous WSU coach, Paul Wulff, who was costing a lot less and producing more. The final year of Wulff's employment last season, his team was averaging 30 plus points per game and over 400 yards per outing of offense. He was hired at $600,000 per annum and in his fourth and final season was making $827,500.

From what we can gather, BYU's Bronco is making a lot less than Leach and probably a little more than Wulff was when he was let go. Again, it is only one game, but BYU's seems to be getting plenty of Bronco Bang for their Bucks.

Both Mendenhall and Leach have their quirks, especially in how they deal with the media. Leach has marketed himself into a millionaire with his quirkiness. But for all the supposed offensive genius of Leach, Mendenhall has proven that he is on par or above Leach on the other side of the line of scrimmage. If Mendenhall had a better PR guy and the goal of gathering a boat load of money, he would already have the label of a defensive guru. What he does with scheme and execution with mostly ordinary defensive players is remarkable in my opinion. What he appears to be doing with some real athletes on his side this season, should be interesting and entertaining. FLUFF AND STUFF Robbie Buckner, the senior cornerback, was a late addition to the football roster despite having lettered and been on the team for years. His absence was originally explained as a private matter. That matter turned out to be testicular cancer that was diagnosed in late spring. He is now in remission and back on the squad. He also saw the field in a back up role to Jordan Johnson against WSU. His recovery and return to the team is great news on two fronts. His health is improved and his return to action gives BYU some much needed and quality depth at cornerback. Two more defensive backs and returned missionaries are now on the team. They both transferred from other schools. Drew Reilly is here after starting for Colorado State last season. Michael Wadsworth is also a former starter at Hawaii as a freshman before leaving on an LDS mission. He is now enrolled at BYU and on the team as a walkon because Hawaii would not release him to enroll at BYU. They said he could go to any other program, but BYU. On the injury front, there appears to be no serious issues coming out of the Washington State opener. Cody Hoffman suffered a deep contusion of the thigh. We would be surprised to see him play against Weber State next week. It's not that he can't, but BYU will want to make sure he is ready for the Utah game the following Saturday. Ditto for Ian Dulan. He is still nursing a back injury and another week out of action against Weber State will give him his best chance to return to action against the Utes. Ziggy Ansah suffered a shoulder strain against WSU, but returned to action later in the contest and will be good to go against the Wildcats of Weber. The BYU Women's soccer team rebounded from their 1-0 loss to Utah last week by upsetting No. 11 ranked Long Beach State in Provo on Thursday night. The final was 1-0 BYU. Television Timetable BYU vs. Weber State Saturday, Sep 8 at Provo Kickoff: 1:00 pm Mountain Time TV: BYUtv BYU vs. Utah Saturday, Sep 15 at Salt Lake Kickoff: 8:00 pm Mountain Time TV: ESPN2 BYU vs. Boise State Thursday, Sep 20 at Boise Kickoff: 7:00 pm Mountain Time TV: ESPN BYU vs. Hawaii Friday, Sep 28 at Provo Kickoff: 6:00 pm Mountain Time TV: ESPN BYU vs. Utah State Friday, Oct 5 at Provo Kickoff: 8:15 pm Mountain Time TV: ESPN