HB Arnett’s 801 372 - 0819 <mailto:hbarnett@fiber.net> hbarnett@fiber.net 1391 West 800 South – Orem, Utah 84058 Vol. 35, Issue 25 – January 12, 2015 Click Here To Order or Renew Your Subscriptions <http://cougarclicks.com/product/Order-Cougar-Sportsline?ID=3173> Another Grimm Fairy Tale PEPPERDINE WILL WIN THE WCC BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP Would it make you feel better after BYU’s 67-61 loss to Pepperdine in Provo last Thursday’s if I told you that the Waves are good enough to win the league championship this season. Nah. Me either. They aren’t and it will take a lot more sprinkling of fairy dust by Dave Rose to convince me that the Cougars have what it takes to even finish in the top three of the WCC this season. Getting dusted by Pepperdine in Provo was more than just smoke and mirrors by the Waves. It was an evil queen wakeup call after BYU consulted the magic mirror and inquired who’s the fairest of them all. These Cougars are certainly cute. When they run, gun and shoot and make the three, they are as coquettish as they come. They just don’t have any inner beauty…literally. We have beaten the lack of post play to death so far this season. BYU doesn’t have any and they aren’t going to mystically find any during the next two months. BYU is built around shooting from distance and making at least 40 percent of those shots. That’s as cute as these Cougars can get this year without post play. Unfortunately, tough and ugly defense trumps cuteness as has been proven in each and every loss the Cougars have this season. BYU has plenty of a sweet personality offense with Dave Rose’s up tempo shoot anywhere, anytime offense. If they are ever going to win this WCC thing, it will take something less pretty and something more gritty and grizzled in the post if the Cougars ever want to take home anything but the Miss Congeniality label in this league. After losing the talent and personality competition to Pepperdine, BYU forsook the Congeniality title and whipped LMU 85-72 to take home the first runner up sash on Saturday. First runner up is what you get when you shoot .448 from beyond the arc against a team with the 4-13 overall and 0-5 WCC records that LMU sports. BYU is currently 14-5 on the year and 4-2 in league play. Gonzaga is 16-1 and 5-0. St. Mary’s is 13-3 and 5-0 and Pepperdine is now 11-5 and 4.1 in conference action. Speaking of St. Mary’s they have a post presence in Brad Waldow and actually can play perimeter defense. Expect BYU to put up a big fight and great effort, but unfortunately the basketball mirror seldom lies for BYU when confronted with post players and defense. Gonzaga and Snow White may be the fairest in the land, but look for BYU to go home Grumpy and Dopey after another defeat at the hands of St. Mary’s in Moraga. Hair, Howell and Hallelujah Bronco Mendenhall is probably at least seasons away from being a candidate for a “comb over” due to male pattern baldness. It only took one season, however, for him to go for a defensive “do over”. Here’s the definition of that term: do-o·ver ˈdo͞oˌōvər/ noun informal noun: do-over; plural noun: do-overs 1. An opportunity to try or perform something a second time. Bronco isn’t saying he will be the defensive coordinator but he says he will be taking over the defense for next season including calling the defensive plays and sets. Here is the official quote and release by BYU last week. “After reviewing the season, I believe returning to my prior responsibilities directly overseeing the defense gives our team the best chance to achieve the results we want on the field,” Mendenhall said. “As a program we’ve had a proven record of defensive success, and I look forward to my role once again as the primary defensive coach working with our coaches and players.” With Mendenhall’s return to the defense, the structure and resources of the defensive staff will mirror that of the 2013 season. BYU’s offensive staff will continue in their current responsibilities in 2015. This step by Bronco and BYU primarily is an admission that the defense of last season was south of subpar. Mendenhall’s return to the top of the defensive food chain primarily signals that the head coach was not happy with what he was force fed to watch last season. It secondarily signals and stops all those media rumors about Mendenhall not being back as the Cougars head coach next year. This move by Bronco will more than likely produce some Hallelujahs by some fans and maybe a hissy fit or two from Nick Howell, the defensive coordinator appointed just last season. Howell, and fan’s perception of him as a defensive coordinator, and the declining defensive numbers is more than likely precipitating this defensive do over. Bronco will need plenty of hair plugs to fix the gaping bald spots in last year’s sieve of a scalp on that side of the ball. There are plenty who will point to the need for a much better defensive secondary. Don’t count me among that group. BYU will never have good to great defensive backs. Where the real upgrade for Mendenhall will have to take place in in the defensive line and linebackers. Both areas were only mediocre last season. For those concerned about how this “do over” rates on the public relation and personal scale of Nick Howell, don’t fret. BYU has a history of doing this sort of thing in their coaching circles. It was just a couple of years ago that Rob Neilson was relieved of his “interim” head coaching title and reshuffled back to an assistant coach in the Men’s Volleyball program. Before that, Trent Shippen was serving as head coach of the women’s basketball team and was replaced as head coach by one of his assistants, Jeff Judkins. Shippen shuttled back to being an assistant for one season and then took off for high school coaching. Click Here <http://www.deseretnews.com/article/838274/Y-womens-coach-Judkins-swap-jobs.html?pg=all> to read about this stranger than fiction story. Match QB with Schedule Who Says BYU Doesn’t Play Anybody? That statement is no longer valid with the announcement last week that BYU and LSU will begin their respective 2017 seasons playing each other in football on September 2, 2017 at the AdvoCare Texas Kickoff , at NRG Stadium—home of the Houston Texans of the National Football League. The game will mark the first ever meeting between the schools. What is still valid, however, is that BYU plays few games against teams with a name and national cache at home. Based on future schedules, however, that appears to be slowly changing. For those keeping score, here are teams that BYU will face the next few seasons. These Schedules are Tentative and will be added and subtracted to and from On the Road/Neutral Home 2015 Nebraska Boise State UCLA UConn Michigan East Carolina Missouri Cincinnati San Jose State Fresno State Utah State Wagner (other possible FBS Team) 2016 Arizona UCLA Utah UMass West Virginia Southern Miss Boise State Utah State Cincinnati 2017 LSU Utah Utah State Boise State East Carolina San Jose State Fresno State UMass Hawaii 2018 2019 2020 At Arizona Wisconsin Arizona At Wisconsin USC At Arizona State At Washington Washington At Boise State Utah State Boise State At Northern Illinois At Boise State At UMass Missouri Northern Illinois At Washington State At Stanford At UMass At Virginia Hawaii At Utah Match QB with Year Now comes the fun part: Matching the potential BYU QB with the future opponent. It’s easy for next year. Taysom Hill will get the start in all 2015 games as long as he remains healthy. My pick for 2016, 2017 and 2018 is Tanner Mangum. This is also my pick for the return of BYU to football prominence. I base this on Mangum’s ability to throw the ball. He is at an elite level. If the Cougars can protect him and surround him with some receivers, this could get fun again. Beyond that is anybody’s guess. Cody Wilstead will be back from an LDS mission and Jaron Hall will be back in the program for 2019, 2020 and 2021. Plus, there is always an unknown to Cougar fans now that may be an impact player. This much is known…by me. At BYU if you don’t have a quarterback that can throw the ball it won’t matter who you have on your schedule. You won’t be very good. If you want a solemn and sure example of this, just watch BYU’s spring drills beginning in March. Hill won’t play and Mangum won’t be back from a mission. It would be a shock if Trent Hosick shows, which he needs to do if he is to enroll in school and be eligible to participate in spring football. That leaves BYU to get through spring with quarterbacks from the Witness Protection List. These will be guys you never heard of and would never recognize and never see again. New Cougar Category Created As BYU fans we all love our Cougar football and basketball, but to enjoy our fandom, we have to be realistic about our expectations for those two sports. The chances are infinitesimal that either of those two BYU sports will ever being playing for a national championship again in my lifetime. Or Dave Rose and Bronco Mendenhall’s lifetime either. It doesn’t make watching BYU football and basketball less enjoyable, it just requires a reality check and adjustment on expectations. Alabama, Oregon, Ohio State and Florida State have their dreams in football and Kansas, Duke and Kentucky will always have their realistic basketball dreams. For BYU, I’ve created a new category for Cougar fans where they too can actually have realistic national championship dreams. You can call it what you want, but I call it the “Big Three”. It consists of BYU Rugby, currently a club sport, and BYU Men and Women’s Volleyball. These are the only three BYU sports in the last decade that have actually proven that they can legitimately compete for a national title in their respective competitions. Women’s soccer gets an honorable mention nod. They are very, very good, but not at the national elite level just yet. We know what the women did in volleyball to earn their status. This past week the seasons started for both BYU Rugby and BYU Men’s Volleyball. In Rugby, The Cougars put a fork in the Sun Devils early and ASU was done way before the 72-8 final score was posted. Click here <http://www.thespectrum.com/story/sports/2015/01/10/byu-arizona-state-rugby-snow-canyon/21576771/> to read a very nice story about BYU’s domination over the Sun Devils. In volleyball BYU opened their season with a split. The Cougars lost to Loyola Chicago 1-3 and then came back to be Lewis 3-2. BYU will open their home season this week with matches against UCLA on Friday and Saturday. Fluff and Stuff There were two significant sightings on campus recently. The one was of Ben Patch, the fabulous outside hitter in volleyball who had a phenomenal freshman season before departing for an LDS mission. He was due back later this year and was to be available to play for the Cougars next season. He is back early from his mission and was spotted at a volleyball practice. No word on whether he will enroll in school and be eligible to play this season. If he does, he would be a major factor. Nick Emery, returned home last Monday from his LDS mission in Germany after receiving a medical release. He was spotted at the Marriott Center Thursday night to watch the BYU-Pepperdine game. After watching the Cougars go 6-26 clunking it from the three line, there were reports that Emery caught the next plane back to Germany to watch videos of Dirk Nowitzki shooting the ball from distance. Just kidding about Emery. He was at the game and still in town rehabbing, but not kidding about the clunkers the Cougars put up against the Waves There appears to be a couple of Snow College Badgers transferring to BYU to play football this next season. Eric Takenaka is a 6-0, 205 pound safety who prepped at West HS in Salt Lake. He is reportedly awaiting on BYU to see if they will admit him to school. His teammate, Christopher Thee is a 6-1, 300 pound offensive lineman who started at center for the Badgers last season. I assume he served an LDS mission because he was a freshman at Snow this season. He graduated from Kahuku HS in Hawaii in 2011. TV Timetable BYU vs. Pacific (Women BB) Thursday, January 15 at Provo Tipoff: 7:00 pm MST TV: BYUtv BYU vs. Pacific Thursday, January 15 at Stockton Tipoff: 9:00 pm MST TV: ESPNU BYU vs. UCLA (Volleyball) Friday, January 16 at Provo Start Time: 7:00 pm MST TV: BYUtv BYU vs. UCLA (Volleyball) Saturday, January 17 at Provo Start Time: 7:00 pm MST TV: BYUtv BYU vs. St. Mary’s (Women BB) Saturday, January 17 at Provo Tipoff: 2:00 pm MST TV: BYUtv BYU vs. St. Mary’s Saturday, January 17 at Moraga Tipoff: 9:00 pm MST TV: ESPN2 BYU vs. San Diego Saturday, January 24 at San Diego Tipoff: 2:00 pm MST TV: Root Sports, CSN and Time Warner Cable If you also want a PDF copy of this issue, email and request it.