Welcome to CrashUtah – Where BYU fans Talk Sports

I just found out that I was wrong about BYUTV not playing BYU basketball games online. Here’s a link of the BYU sports schedule on BYUTV: http://www.byubroadcasting.org/sports/

You can get the video of the games at http://www.byu.tv

I don’t think I could ask for anything better. Maybe if I could download it to my Ipod or hook my computer monitor up to my Big TV screen.

With about 14 minutes left in the second half the Radio(internet radio) announcer said that the game was over. I couldn’t agree more. What’s wrong with BYU on the road in the first half. They get down early and then don’t have any shot of winning. Call it young. Call it immature. Call it road game blues. It is depressing.

I had to turn off the game and read about the apple ipods, mp3 players and movies since the game was so ugly.

How many times have you heard a BYU fan say that it seems like everyone in the Mountain West Conference just loves to beat BYU. Well, now I have proof that it’s at least true for one team. I now work at a school that is in the Mountain West Conference that is not BYU. As part of my daily work I received an email from a colleague at Wyoming. At the end of his email he put something like this in the P.S.:

P.S. Your team beat Wyoming this week, but I won’t hold that against you. Go Wyoming, and anyone who beats BYU!!

As I read the email I was a little confused because BYU didn’t play Wyoming that week. I checked the schedule just to make sure and sure enough we hadn’t. Then , I realized that he was referring to “my team” as the University I now work for. Oh was he wrong, but how great is it for me to see that he really does want BYU to lose just as much as I want the Utes to lose.

You can imagine my contented heart when I emailed him back and said that I was a BYU fan and sent him a link to this page. Aren’t rivalries great?

Now that this season is over it is time for Bronco Mendenhall to start taking credit(or blame) for what happens to the BYU football program. It is nice as a rookie in college football to be able to enjoy a few standard excuses like “I didn’t recruit these players” and “I’m still getting use to this head coach role.” I think it is even a greater burden because of the LDS speaking engagements that are required at firesides and other LDS events. The funny part is that I don’t think Bronco really even likes most of those things. I digress!!

Crowton’s gone and Bronco’s no longer a rookie football coach. Let’s see what he does with accountability now. I like the way he’s playing the religion card and recruiting players using the unique aspects of the LDS church and BYU. Whether that helps or hurts recruiting is still to be seen. At least it should leave every recruit with a lasting impression about BYU that they can share with other teamates should they decide to go to other schools. If nothing else was accomplished by Bronco, I think the LDS leadership of BYU will be grateful and proud.

I think Bronco is going to fair very well. He’s taken all the media hooplah very well and always represented BYU in the best way possible. In fact, I can’t ever remember him dishing any blame on Crowton. That’s not his jobs, it’s the medias. Now not even the media can protect him.

Go Cougars.

I went to the game and I can’t say much good about it. I did like the play of Jackson Emery. He looks like he has some good potential. For the rest of the guys I was mostly embarassed. It looked like they were a bunch of immature youngsters who were getting pounded by a more mature team here in Las Vegas. I know it’s a road game in Las Vegas with a very fast UNLV team. I just don’t know how BYU could show such immaturity in the game. UNLV let us in the game the first half with a lot of ugly plays and turnovers and we still couldn’t capitilize.

The only really good part of the night was when the UNLV player missed the layin-dunk.

BYU has a tough matchup Wednesday in Las Vegas against a UNLV team coming off a good win against Wyoming. Not that Wyoming is that good, but for any team to go to the difficult confines of Wyoming and come away with a win is a good thing. One glaring stat from that game is that UNLV only had 2 turnovers the entire game. Pretty impressive.

The lack of turnovers I think can be attributed in part to UNLV’s speed. BYU will have an interesting time trying to matchup to the speed of UNLV. However, I see UNLV having a hard time finding someone to matchup with Plaisted or Malaman from BYU. I expect to see a lot of good defense and scoring from those 2 guys. Their play will determine the outcome of the game. The guards won’t be nearly the factor, unless Trent gets doubled and then he’ll have to learn to pass out of the post which he hasn’t done that well so far.

I expect a Very fast paced game and wouldn’t be surprised to see someone break the century mark. I can’t wait for the game. The Thomas and Mack is always an exciting place with the fireworks. Let’s just hope BYU takes care of all the excitement on the floor.

Offense
Biggest Surprise: Harline has to take it. Every recruit comes with great stats and a great outlook. He actually showed it.
I can’t take Beck since he was expected to be a little better and he was. I can’t give props for doing what was expected

Biggest Disappointment: Todd for sure. Although I don’t know that it was all his fault. I don’t think the offense was really designed for his style of play. He needs the explosive Crowton plays instead of the short chunks that Anae brings.

Defense
Biggest Surprise:
Linebacker core. I think our linebackers played solid and did a good job clogging the middle.
Biggest Disappointment:
Injuries and tackling. I don’t know how you avoid injuries, but BYU seemed to take it hard. I don’t think I need to say more about tackling.

Overall
Biggest Surprise:
Bowl Game

Biggest Disappointment:
Defense(or lack therof)

BYU hasn’t looked like the run and gun offense and even up tempo isn’t quite what I’d say either. BYU just doesn’t have the athletes to do that. The Phoenix Suns are the best thing I could think of as far as a run and gun offense and I don’t see any Amare or Marion on BYU’s team and all of our guards are a long shot from Nash(although Balderson is also Canadian).

I will say that from the few games I’ve seen video or live and more specifically in the second half of the Utah game they really did a good job getting the ball down to Plaisted so he could do some work. I think Plaisted is rushing the shot and needs to have a little more patience down there. Also, he needs to work on delivering the ball from the post. This will come with time and more importantly when the double teams start coming. I like this a lot better than Ainge running down court, kicking it to Rose and him throwing up the 3.

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With the great win against the dreadful Utes(yes they would be dreadful no matter how you slice it and dice it). This was a good win. Losing against Air Force and again against Utah would be a devastating start to the Mountain West Conference season. I just don’t think BYU could have recovered.

For now let’s rejoice and praise the Lord tomorrow in church. I don’t think it was the prettiest game I’ve seen. I’d like to see a little more consistency, but I guess I expect perfection when you play for BYU. I’ll comment more on the BYU players later. Time to Celebrate!!

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I found an excellent interview posted on the CougarBoard. It has Bronco addressing some interesting facets of his life, addressing the defensive problems and some good Bronco philosophy. Take a look and tell me what you think:

Transcribed by Jim Vallen
COUGARBLUE

BYU Coach Bronco Mendenhall appeared earlier this week on “The Manly Morning Show, on 1280 KZN AM (“The Zone”). The local Salt Lake City sports talk program is anchored by KUTV Sports Anchor David James and Salt Lake Tribune writer Patrick Kinahan. It was one of the first public interviews of Coach Mendenhall since the Las Vegas Bowl and very well addresses some of the issues out there for the coach and the direction that the BYU football program is heading in. Take some time and hear the dialogue that “DJ” and “PK” struck up with the now veteran coach as he officially enters his second year as head coach of the BYU Cougar football team.

1280 The Zone: I saw you at the Jazz game last night sitting down there in the front row. So the seasons over and in the rear view mirror? Even though recruiting is a big deal is there just a little bit of time to relax?

Mendenhall: It was an amazing experience. I knew when I went to that game that I would be seen and by the time I ended up accepting that invitation we ended up sitting in the front row. So that is basically the only time I’ve been out and I’m back here early this morning getting after it.

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