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So a little bit of sloppiness is to be expected after almost a month off, but it was getting a little out of hand there for a little while. It’s like the ball is greased or something.

BYU does seem to be finding a little bit of rhythm, unfortunately it is half way through the game already. I think the biggest thing killing BYU right now is the absence of Dennis Pitta. I know he is on the field at times, but he is certainly not himself. BYU’s offense just isn’t the same without him.

On defense, BYU HAS to find some way to get some pressure on Tuitama. I would say give Arizona some credit, but BYU is only rushing three or four every down. There have been one or two downs where they rushed five or six, and what was the result, incomplete passes. He is not a good enough quarterback to handle a lot of pressure, but for whatever reason BYU can’t create any.

On offense, they simply need to keep doing what they did to finish the half, minus three penalties on third down. The announcers keep talking about how much bigger and stronger BYU is, so they need to use that to there advantage and keep smashing Harvey down there throats. They were starting to get worn down, and it will only get worse.

While in all reality this has no business being a very close game, this year, BYU has made the less challenging games far more challenging than they need to be.

I will give Arizona some credit, and a congratulations on their first bowl in ten years, but not too much credit. What they have going for them is an experienced quarterback, and a vastly improved running game, but that is about it.

Unfortunately, they have the next to impossible task of bottling up Harvey Unga, Austin Collie, and Dennis Pitta. The only team to successfully do that, when they were all healthy, was TCU, and we all know how that ended up. Even Utah didn’t do that, they were just the beneficiary of a lot of turnovers. Arizona should be scared of how bad Max Hall will want to make up for those mistakes this Saturday.

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but BYU needs to get pressure on the quarterback to be successful on defense. That was the key to their success last year, and what has been lacking this year. Give all the credit in the world to Jan Jorgensen for having a decent season being double and triple teamed. If there was even one other player that could command some attention, he would have been an all-american this year.

As I said before, Arizona should be scared about Max Hall’s desire for redemption on Saturday, but at the same time so should BYU. He will be the difference maker in this game. If he comes out fired up having learned from his many mistakes at Utah, he will shred Arizona apart like he was doing early in the season. On the other hand if he comes out with only the emotion, he will start forcing things again and this game could get out of hand the other way.

Knowing how Bronco has been in the past after a disheartening loss I would look for BYU to come out full of emotion just like the UCLA game, and if they get a few fortunate bounces and calls, this game could end up much the same way. More realistically I would say BYU will simply wear them out with a heavy dose of Harvey Unga (what they should have done at Utah) and then pull away with a couple of late scores to finish it off. Final score: BYU 42-Arizona 21.

The discussion at this point in the season naturally revolves around what teams will go to what bowls. In that light it will be very interesting to see where BYU ends up. The most obvious choice is for BYU to go to The Las Vegas Bowl once again. This seems the most likely seeing as how they have sold it out in the past, and the bowl committee will be looking to make that same money again this year.

I must admit that I really don’t want this to happen. I am tired of Las Vegas. Even though it is considered a lesser bowl, I would rather see BYU go to the Poinsettia Bowl. In fact, I read an interesting idea where the Pac-10 could give up their half of the Poinsettia Bowl and let Boise State come down and play BYU. Now there is a grand idea.

It would be great to see BYU play a good team in a bowl for the first time in years. That would allow BYU to have something to get up for and challenge them to get some momentum going for next year. I am a little concerned that if BYU gets stuck playing another crappy Pac-10 team they will be lazy about it, and get beat which is definitely not what they need at this point.

It would be nice if the bowl environment would allow for BYU to go to some other bowl somewhere else, but with all of the conference guarantees that will never happen. I actually kind of miss the old days when you really didn’t know where your team would end up because there were very few guarantees. It gave you a chance to play teams you otherwise probably would not have, and it gave some suspense to the selection process.

I would really like to see them go back to a system where there are fewer guarantees. Maybe even a system where only the conference champion is guaranteed to go to a certain bowl, and the rest get to fight over what is left which would make for a much more interesting bowl season. They really need to do something though, because even some of the BCS games are losing their hype and the rest of the bowls totally are.

They need to go back to having bowl games on New Years Day with the National Championship that night. They complain that a playoff would lengthen the season too much yet the National Championship keeps getting pushed back later and later. There are even bowls after New Years that have no relevance in the national scene.

But, the NCAA is not going to change anything, and BYU will probably be stuck going to another Las Vegas Bowl and have to play another Pac-10 team. I guess it could be worse, they could be done for the season completely.