HB Arnett’s 801 372 - 0819 hbarnett@fiber.net 1391 West 800 South – Orem, Utah 84058 Vol. 34, Issue 8 – September 23, 2013 Click <http://cougarclicks.com/product/Order-Cougar-Sportsline?ID=3173> Here To Order Or Renew Your Subscriptions LET LITTLEWOOD DESCRIBE BYU’S 20-13 LOSS TO UTAH Leave it to Mike Littlewood, BYU’s Baseball Coach, to aptly describe BYU’s 20-13 loss to Utah last Saturday night in Provo. The Cougar coach, in his first season at the helm of BYU baseball last spring lost five games to the San Diego Toreros. He was swept in three games by USD in the regular season and lost twice more in the WCC post season tournament. After the last loss, in his post game radio show, he said, that after losing five times to the same team that he had to finally admit that USD was a better team than BYU and that now his goal was to get the Cougars to the same level as the Toreros. Ladies and Gentlemen, that is exactly where BYU currently is as it relates to Utah in football. After 4 straight losses to the Utes in the last four seasons and after suffering through a 6-3 losing record under Bronco Mendenhall, it can’t be rationalized, dismissed or denied any longer. Utah is a better football program than BYU. They have better coaches, players, schemes, facilities, kickers and an undeniable butt kicking record in head to head competition between the two teams. It was painful to watch Saturday night in Provo, but as coaches love to say, the film doesn’t lie. Neither do the replays of the other three games in this dismal last four seasons. Sage Advice Here’s a piece of sage advice. Unless you live in Alabama and cheer for the Crimson Tide, get used to disappointment and disillusionment. Utah may currently own BYU, but they will have more than their share of the Double D’s this season and beyond. BYU will also have disappointment and disillusionment the rest of this season because of an anemic offense. The irony of offense when it comes to the two schools is that Bronco has said publicly that Utah didn’t have an offensive identity last year, but with the hiring of Dennis Erickson this spring, the Utes now do. The hiring of Robert Anae by Mendenhall took away BYU’s offensive identity. It currently is in hiding in the witness protection program. Don’t expect Kyle Whittingham to say anytime soon that BYU doesn’t have an offensive identity this season, so I will say it for him. The Cougars have no clue on offense. Yes, that is disheartening, but it really gets disappointing when you see what Robert Anae, the BYU offensive coordinator, said in his Utah post game assessment: “Our focus is to continue down the path that we’re going. We got beat tonight in the trenches, and that’s something that we’ve got to simply get better at. Credit goes to Utah. They were better than we were there. That’s not to blame any one group or any one person. It was an offensive effort, and their defense beat us.” Here’s a quote from Henry Ford that would seem to rebut Anae. Ford said decades ago, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got." What we have at the moment as followers of BYU football is a pretty decent defense and an anemic offense with no identity and certainly no passing game. Anae is right, if we are going to continue to run the same three read option plays and hope to be successful, BYU will need some more talented offensive linemen. Tide Over Until that happens, what they need right now is a passing game to tide them over until recruiting can replace linemen. This brings us to the elephant in the room. BYU doesn’t have a passing game. Remember the preseason hype (including my own) about what a new receiver coach would bring to the table and how good BYU receivers would be and how accurate Taysom Hill was? In football talk, if the film doesn’t lie, neither do passing statistics. After 3 games, BYU and Taysom Hill’s passing completion rate is at a dismal, disappointing and disillusioning 35 percent. Call that the Triple D’s. Georgia Tech and Air Force may be happy with a 35 percent completion percentage, but BYU can’t live with it and expect to win games. History backs up that assessment. In the last 13 seasons, BYU has had some very good quarterbacks, some average quarterbacks and some less than average quarterbacks. The lowest passing percentage turned in by that assortment of QB’s in 13 years was 54 percent. Here are the actual passing percentage numbers by season. 2012-59 percent; 2011-56 percent; 2010-57 percent; 2009-67 percent; 2008-69 percent; 2007-60 percent; 2006-69 percent; 2005-64 percent; 2004-55 percent; 2003-54 percent; 2002-55 percent; 2001-64 percent and 2000-56 percent. You don’t need a history comparison to see that BYU’s passing game is horrible. Check out Hill’s pass efficiency rating. It currently stands at 74.28 and doesn’t even rank in the top 100 of NCAA stats. Sean Mannion, the Oregon State QB, who toasted Utah two weeks ago, has a rating of 169.5 and is ranked 12th in that category in national stats. Travis Wilson, Utah’s quarterback has a rating of 166.5 and Chuckie Keeton, Utah State’s QB has a rating of 166.6. That ranks 16th and 17h respectively. Jake Heaps, the former BYU QB has a rating of 105.1. That is good for 98th in the national pass efficiency standings. Flawed Offense It’s just my opinion, but BYU’s current offensive system is flawed. It depends on opponents defensive players becoming tired instead of BYU’s offense being productive on their own. It might be more palatable if there was just an ordinary passing game instead of a poor passing game, but the way it’s shaking out now, when BYU faces good front sevens capable of taking away their go fast, go hard running game, the Cougars are in big trouble. The good news for at least a week is that BYU won’t face a good front seven this Friday in Provo when the Cougars host Middle Tennessee State. The Blue Raiders are coming off a 42-35 overtime win on the road against Florida Atlantic. MTSU is currently 3-1 on the season with the lone loss at North Carolina by the score of 40-20. BYU is an early three touchdown favorite. The game is set to kickoff at 7:00 pm Mountain Time and will be televised live on ESPNU. Middle Tennessee will be a quick fix for the Cougar offense, but will only last a week until BYU has to travel to Logan. Bronco has painted himself into a corner, in my opinion. He values loyalty and said many times that Robert Anae is the most loyal assistant coach he has ever had. That will make it very hard for him to pull the mid season trigger like Mendenhall did when he relieved Jaime Hill of his defensive coordinator job and took over himself. Safe Anae is safe because of Mendenhall’s loyalty and because all other offensive staff members are so inexperienced at this level. What Mendenhall can do, however, is insist on some offensive adjustments. Anae already has experience with the offense John Beck, Max Hall and Jake Heaps ran. Why not slowly incorporate a little déjà vu for disappointment and disillusionment of the current go hard, go fast offense. With at least some plays that would allow BYU’s quarterback and receivers to be in a passing game mode, that would allow the other quarterbacks on the roster, most notably, Ammon Olsen, to see what they could do in the passing department. After three games, stubbornness is not working and neither is the BYU passing game. It might be time for Mendenhall to add the biography of Henry Ford to his extensive library of books in his office and heed what the legendary auto innovator and manufacturer said: "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got." What BYU has got is a lousy passing game that can’t continue or they will get what they have right now…a losing record. A Dickens of a Situation The Tale of Two Cities…Connell, WA and Las Vegas, NV Click on the following two links to get a tale of two stories and cities. 1. Connell, WA. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z0LmwVr-fk> 2. <http://deadspin.com/this-is-the-photo-that-got-a-byu-football-player-suspen -1356566456> Las Vegas. Both pieces are all about manipulation. The first, by BYUtv, was nicely produced by Kathy Aiken. It made you feel like she was right there asking the questions. She never made the trip. They hired a free lancer to shoot the video and ask the questions. She later dubbed in her voice for the questions and edited according. There’s nothing wrong with that. It was a good piece and made you proud that Spencer Hadley was a BYU representative. That is the built in bias of BYUtv and their intent to portray BYU in a good and positive light. The second piece was also manipulative. It was edited and included a photo that was intended to make you not be proud of Hadley as a BYU representative. It showed a built in bias and intent to disparage BYU and indicate that the school, with all of its good points, also is occasionally guilty of hypocrisy and human frailty. The media can’t help itself in its manipulation. Bias is inherently built in. What you are reading now is inherently biased because I have biases and I wrote it. Here is something that is not biased. Spencer Hadley was suspended by BYU for 5 games. Regardless if you think the Las Vegas photo was altered in any way, or regardless of how you feel about the guy who revealed the photo and his timing or the involvement of the Utah compliance officer, Hadley is suspended. That means something happened that BYU and its Honor Code was not proud of. I have no problem with the suspension or any suspensions made in the past by BYU. I am in favor of them. As Johnnie Cochrane said, if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit. The Hadley suspension indicates that the glove fit. I am in favor of clean air, but I am not a fan of the EPA. I like education, but think the Department of Education is very poorly administered. I could go on and on. Let me be right up front. I am in favor of the Honor Code at BYU. It is a good thing. I am opposed, however, to the Honor Code Office and the current manner in which that administration operates. It is redundant and at times repugnant. For example, in the Hadley case, a spokesman of BYU said that Hadley was working with the Dean of Students. The Church already has somebody, who doesn’t get paid to deal with this stuff. That would be the Bishop. Forget the Dean of Students; Hadley should be working with his Bishop and Coach Mendenhall. The Dean is just another layer of BYU government bureaucracy. But what about the Honor Code and non-LDS students, you ask? Who would administrate those cases? That’s easy. They would have to work out their infractions with a committee comprised of the sports writers and editors of the Salt Lake Tribune and compliance officers of the University of Utah. They already have extensive experience in exposing and ferreting out the faux pas of BYU athletes. Again, from my perspective, the Honor Code is a good thing, but if the current administration of it at BYU was such a great thing and an ideal working program, it would have been already implemented in LDS Wards worldwide. If it was such a great idea, in addition to each ward having an executive secretary, they would also have a ward executive Keep the Commandments secretary and spokesman. It would work in wards the same way it works at BYU. For example: Inquiring mind: Brother Betterthanyou (the ward executive Keep the Commandments spokesman), I noticed that Brother Tryinghard passed on the sacrament when it came by today. Is he on Church discipline? Brother Betterthanyou: I cannot comment on that publicly, but I will say that he has not kept all the commandments and that he is currently working with the Bishop on the matter. Inquiring mind: Does this mean that he can’t play on the ward basketball team? Brother Betterthanyou: No he can’t play, but he is still in good standing with the Setting up Chairs committee of the ward. He can continue to do that because we may need him later in the fall when our big ward socials with Boise State, Wisconsin and Notre Dame are on the ward calendar. Inquiring Mind: So what did he do? Brother Betterthanyou: I can’t answer that, but you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what he did. Just compare the punishments dished out for other ward members on the basketball team and you will have a good idea of what his problem was. Also, let me just say that when it comes to missteps, mistakes and commandment keeping, I believe in full disclosure even if the Bishop and Church doesn’t. As a compromise, I suggest you watch how many weeks it will be before Brother Tryinghard plays again on the ward basketball team. As a side note, he will probably be participating in the sacrament before he plays basketball again. I also suggest you consult and read what the editors of our ward newsletter, We Know What You Did write. They are all experienced followers of ward members and their foibles and ardent believers that as long as you live in our ward, you should be held responsible for your actions not only in private with the Bishop but definitely in public with the rest of the ward. Inquiring mind: But what about Brother Tryinghard? How does he feel? Brother Betterthanyou. That’s not relevant. The Bishop is probably empathetic, but for the rest of us in the ward, he got himself into this mess and now he will have to suffer the consequences privately and publicly. If he wants to look for another ward somewhere, that might be more sympathetic, that is up to him. It’s my calling to keep the ward informed on the messes of member’s lives. Until I’m released, that is what I am going to do faithfully. Personally, I couldn’t care less about these people. Don’t ask me to help wash the sheets of scandal. They made their beds, now they have to sleep in them and damn the Ward Basketball team or people’s lives. Prison Perspective The following was posted on the popular internet site CougarBoard by a poster with the handle of BYUcougs11. It was posted Friday night at 9:15 pm after the BYU football team had given a fireside at the Utah State Prison: I love our team My father works for the Department of Corrections and I had the opportunity to attend the fireside at the State Prison tonight. I have rarely been more proud to be a BYU Cougar than tonight. There were around 120 inmates in attendance. They gave the team a standing ovation as they walked in. It was similar to most firesides that the team does, but after each speaker the inmates would cheer. After Coach Mendenhall spoke he opened it up to questions from the inmates. When Bronco finished his last answer one of the inmates shouted, "Let Spencer play." I had not seen Spencer Hadley come in, but he got up in front of those inmates and gave a powerful message about redemption and overcoming sin. When he finished he was given a standing ovation from everyone in the room. He was crying and he and Bronco hugged while the room cheered. It was a powerful moment. It said a lot about Spencer that he would be there and be willing to share his feelings. As the team walked out the inmates were standing chanting, "B Y U, B Y U." I am so proud of those who represent the great school we all love. I have gotten caught up in the crap that this week brings, but tonight reminded me what Bronco and this team are about. Go Cougars, Beat Utah! Williams doing well after suffering concussion and severe stinger The following is an official release by BYU on Sunday regarding the condition of Jamaal Williams: PROVO, Utah (Sept. 22, 2013) — BYU sophomore running back Jamaal Williams suffered a concussion and severe stinger during last night's BYU vs. Utah football game at LaVell Edwards Stadium. Williams is doing well and has been discharged this morning from Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. He was taken to the hospital during the game to undergo imaging and other testing to eliminate concern of spine-related injury. He was alert and his condition continued to improve last night during testing. He was kept in the hospital overnight for observation. The status for his return will be based on day-to-day progression and continued improvement throughout the week. BYU hosts Middle Tennessee on Friday night at 7 p.m. MT on ESPNU. Television Timetable BYU vs. Middle Tennessee Friday, Sept 27 at Provo Kickoff: 7:00 pm Mountain Time TV: ESPNU BYU vs. Utah State Friday, Oct 4 at Logan Kickoff: 6:00 pm Mountain Time TV: CBS Sports Network BYU vs. Georgia Tech Saturday, Oct 12 at Provo Kickoff: TBA TV: TBA BYU vs. Houston Saturday, Oct 19 at Houston Kickoff: TBA TV: TBA Boise State vs. BYU Friday, Oct 25 at Provo Kickoff: 6:00 pm Mountain Time TV: ESPN