Cliches are cliches for a reason. Three popular cliches when it comes to the Holy War are "throw out everything you know about these teams when they play each other". "Forget the records." "You never know what will happen during the Holy War."
In a rivalry whose recent history is filled with unpredictable moments and games, 2011 was no different. For once, the game didn't require a last second block, an OT catch and run, a magical 4th and 18 conversion, a final play catch, a doink off the goal post, or any number of last second plays this rivalry is famous for.
this game to come to the end. Add into the equation the common feeling that many wondered if the two teams could even combine for 30 points.
That last thing anybody expected was a blowout, but that's exactly what ended up happening.
A Tale Of Two Halves
It was the closest of games, It was the largest of margins.
Despite starting the game with Jake Heaps doing his best
Keystone Kops impression, and the Cougars first three drives ending in fumbles, there they were with 4:00 to go in the half, holding the ball and a 10-7 lead. Not only that, but they had spent a good portion of the first half absolutely bringing the wood on defense. Utah WR DeVonte Christopher was out of the game, thanks to a couple of absolutely brutal hits, and on the previous drive, Utah QB Jordan Wynn was knocked out of the game, holding his non-throwing arm, much the same way Sam Bradford did in Dallas in 2009.
BYU would eventually have a 3 and out. Jordan Wynn came back in, and led the Utes on a 6 play 63 yard touchdown drive. One that was kept alive by an absolutely bone-headed pass interference by Cougar safety Travis Uale, on a play that would have forced the Utes to punt.
Despite being down 14-10, BYU had fought back from three fumbles. They had nearly 200 yards passing, and had forced two turnovers of their own. This game seemed like it was destined to go down to the wire again.
What happened in the second half was an embarrassment of epic proportions. Wynn hooked up with Dres Anderson on a beautiful arching pass, that Anderson turned into a 59 yard TD, to start a menagerie of Utah domination, and BYU ineptitude that didn't end until John White IV scored on consecutive runs of 62 and 35 yards. Utah was down 10-7 with only a +1 turnover margin, but before the next turnover would occur, Utah had ran the score up to 24-10.
By the time the second 30 minutes had ended, Utah had ended up scoring 47 unanswered points, while their defense, and BYU offense had conspired for a total of 7 BYU turnovers. The game had turned into a shellacking that saw Utah break BYU's will. Finally at about the same time BYU fans had a mass exodus from the stadium at the beginning of the 4th quarter, the BYU team itself quit.
The Blame Game
Jake Heaps had a fumble on his own 6 yard line. On the first drive of the game, rather than just fall on another fumble at his own 2, which would have allowed BYU to punt, he tried to pick up the ball and pass, instead he ended up losing his grip on the ball, and Derick Shelby scored a TD. He threw one interception. Time and time again, he would bounce passes about 5 yards short of his receiver on 3rd down to kill drives.
JJ DiLuigi, and Josh Quezada both fumbled and were part of an 11 yard rushing attack.
The defensive line, was rarely ever able to get pressure on Wynn. On 3 consecutive plays they gave up runs of 20 yards, 62 yards for a TD, and 35 yards for a TD.
The Linebackers and DB's were frequently out of position allowing, Utah's WR's to make catches in gaps of the zone.
The offensive line started the game with Center Terrence Brown snapping a shotgun snap far right, and over Heaps head for the Shelby touch down. It never got better as they allowed sacks and pressure on the QB's all day, and never opened up holes for the running game.
There was plenty of blame to go around, so the question is, who gets the blame for this loss.
Not Jake Heaps. Yes Heaps was bad. One could even say he was pathetic at times. But despite all his struggles he did have 200 yards passing in the first quarter. While he may not be consistent, there does seem to be one consistent thing from him this year. The weekly touchdown pass to Ross Apo. This time a beautiful rainbow of a pass to put the Cougars up 10-7.
Not the running backs. They were definitely ineffective, but the OL did a terrible job of opening holes for them. While they did fumble twice, I give the credit for both fumbles to Chaz Walker, and Star Lotuleilei, who made great plays to punch the ball out.
Not the defensive line. They were on the field way too much in the second half. Despite finishing the game with 174 yards rushing, John White IV had been held to only 24 of those yards in the first half, and 57 yards through the first three quarters.
Not the Linebackers and DB's. Despite giving up decent chunks of yardage in the first half, they were absolutely bringing the wood to make the ball carrier pay for getting those yards. More impressively, except for Travis Uale, they were legal hits they were using as well. It's a good thing Utah has a bye, because they will need it to recover from some of the first half hits BYU brought. Uale Kaveinga leveled Christopher causing a fumble, and Kyle Van Oy made a brilliant play, tipping a Jordan Wynn pass to himself for an interception.
The Offensive line didn't really do much of anything good to counteract its disastrous game. If you must absolutely blame a group of players for a loss, this would be it for me.
But no, I'm not even going to blame them for the loss. This was a team that played like
football really does come fifth, and to me that means there is only one person to blame, not just for this loss, but for the general direction of this team. This was a team that seemed unprepared, undisciplined, and especially in the second half, they seemed to lack conditioning. After halftime, it seemed BYU didn't make any adjustments. While I'll give Bronco credit for keeping BYU's head in the game after the first three turnovers, throughout the rest of the game he was clearly out coached.
Down This Path Before
This isn't the first time that BYU has started 1-2 under Bronco Mendenhall. In fact in this is now the 5th time Bronco started the season 1-2. Each previous time he started 1-2 he managed to right the ship, twice he ended up with 10 or more wins, and every time he's managed at least a .500 record. So just because they are now staring at a 1-2 record doesn't mean this season will end up a disaster. But isn't the real problem that once again, high pre season expectations have turned into a struggling beginning.
And why is Bronco 1-6 in the 3rd game of the season during his career.
This year it will be interesting to see if BYU can right the ship. The Cougars right now are on a very slippery slope. Sure they've been 1-2 before and turned it around. Last year being the most recent time it happened. This time though, the Cougars don't have anything to play for.
In previous years, even when starting 1-2, the Cougars had a Conference Championship to play for. Twice they had turned it around and won that conference championship. Even in the two years they didn't win the conference after starting 1-2, they had the chance at a better bowl game to play for. Even last year when they had all their struggles, they came into the Holy War with a chance at second place in the conference and possibly the Vegas Bowl. (TCU who the Vegas Bowl normally would have taken since they won the conference, would have been gone to the Rose Bowl.)
On an individual basis, the players had personal conference based achievements to strive for, such a conference offensive player of the year, all conference honors, etc.
This year that's all gone. If they only manage to win the minimum 6 games, or if they win out and end the season at 10-2, their bowl game was determined when they lost to Texas. They can't win a conference championship, and the players have no individual honors available.
Before the season Bronco admitted that the Cougars primary goal of the season was to win the State, and then hopefully get into a BCS bowl. Both those goals are gone. During the Utah game, the Cougars showed that they are not mentally strong. They have already quit once when the going got tough, what happens if they struggle more.
There are four games that BYU should win, just by showing up (San Jose State, Idaho State, Idaho, and New Mexico State.) That will put them at 5 wins. There is one game left that BYU will be the heavy underdog (TCU.) That leaves 4 toss up games left on the schedule - Utah State, Central Florida, Oregon State, and Hawaii - and these will be the games where a possible BYU slide will show up the most.
Moving Past The Rivalry
Both teams must now move past the rivalry and prepare for the rest of the season. Fortunately for Utah, they get a bye week to heal up. And they definitely need it. BYU was bringing the wood in the first half of that game. Utah suffered some major bumps and bruises. Wynn and Christopher both missed plays. RB Tauni Vakapuna injured his ankle, and even though he tried to gut it out, you could see that it was hurting him. The biggest injury for Utah was OL Tony Bergstrom going down with a knee injury. As he hobbled off the field, Bergstrom couldn't put any weight on his leg, and it looked to be a devastating injury.
Good news coming from the coaching staff, saying this is an MCL sprain. This is fortunate because if it had been a full MCL tear, or an ACL injury Bergstrom would be done for the year, instead Bergstrom is being listed as questionable for the Washington game.
For Utah, other than healing, the important thing about this bye week will be to forget about the Rivalry game. It was a great win, but Utah must now put it behind them. They must move on. They must forget it.
While Utah has extra time to prepare for their next game, BYU has less time than normal to prepare for their next game.
The Golden Knights
After such an embarrassing beatdown at the hands of your rivals, I can't decide if the fact that BYU has a shorter week is good or bad. On one hand it means they don't have as much time to focus on the loss. On the other hand a loss like this can dwell for an extra day or two, something they just don't have now.
Before the season I had targeted the UCF game as possibly the first Akbar Alert of the year. Thanks to the loss this is no longer a possible trap game, but I still think UCF is dangerous.
The Golden Knights won 11 games last year, and were a dark horse to break into the BCS. That all changed when they lost to FIU last week. This means both teams are coming into the game off of disappointing losses. It'll be interesting to see which coach can get their team's heads in the game.
One matchup I'm interested in, is to see how BYU handles the UCF Quarterback. In years past a scrambling quarterback has had field days with the BYU defense. This year, BYU has the linebackers to handle scrambling quarterbacks. UCF runs a spread offense that utilizes the Zone-Read running play. Sophomore QB Jeff Godfrey is very adept at running the zone read. He's second on the team in rushing yards, only 4 yards behind running back Ronnie Weaver.
We've heard all year how BYU's defense is improved. I don't buy it. Texas and Ole Miss' offense were in shambles during those games. Against Utah they showed they have very bad intentions, and could absolutely hit, but the defense had holes. Even keeping White to 54 yards through the first three quarters is an accomplishment of unknown excellence, because honestly, we don't know how good White is.
It will be interesting to see how this defense handles this offense. Also in case you were wondering, while Godfrey and the Knights rely heavily on the run in their spread, they aren't one dimensional and can throw the ball.
Another Test For Heaps/Doman
Defensively the Knights rank 3rd in points against giving up only 6.7 points per game. Of course that's helped by a 62 - 0 shutout of Div 1-AA Charleston Southern, but there was also a 30-3 beat down of BCS AQ Boston College. BYU's offense, as we all know, has struggled to put points up on the board. In fact BYU has three offensive touchdowns, all of them being passes to Ross Apo.
I know BYU fans want to see Heaps and the passing game come around, but the key to this game for BYU will be the running game. DiLuigi had 31 yards rushing against Utah, but sacks and other struggles meant the team as a whole rushed for only 11 yards. Throughout the year BYU is ranked 118th in the country with only 48.3 yards per game. This isn't bad, this is abysmal. Despite all the hype and hope, Heaps is not ready to fully shoulder the load, and the Cougars desperately need the running game to come on. The only two teams worse than BYU at rushing this year is FAU and ECU. But all they've done is play #22 Florida/#17 Michigan State and #12 South Carolina/#11 Virginia Tech respectively.
A Unique Award
I've been high on Trevor Reilly all offseason. Especially since the Red White spring game where he had the "whoa" play of the game. This week Reilly showed exactly why I've been hyping him. Trevor Reilly won the Pac-12 Defensive player of the week with his performance. This makes him the first ever University of Utah player, in any sport, to win a Pac-12 player of the week award.
Reilly deserved it as well. In a game that had many defensive plays by Utah, Reilly stood out. He had 2 sacks, 1 fumble recovery, 3 Tackles for loss, 5 other tackles, and 2 pass break ups. He was also credited with 3 forced fumbles.
It's the last stat that I have a question for. I can only count two forced fumbles.
BYU had the following fumbles:
Terrence Brown snapped the ball over Heaps' head. Heaps spazzes, and Derick Shelby scores a TD.
Chaz Walker tackles Josh Quezada and pops the ball out with a well placed helmet.
Star Lotuleilei reaches a massive paw out and pops the ball away from JJ DiLuigi
JD Falslev Muffed a kickoff, Chandler Johnson prevents BYU from recovering and Mo Lee covers up the ball.
Reilly sacks Heaps, forces the fumble, and recovers at the 6
Reilly sacks Riley Nelson, forces a fumble that VJ Fehoko picks up, and turns on the afterburners for a TD.
I don't get the third forced fumble. Either way a much deserved award for Trevor Reilly.
The Rivalry Lives
There was a lot of talk about whether the rivalry would live on after the moves of the two teams. For me, it still lives. My nerves before the game, stress during the game as the Utes got three turnovers but only seven points, my enjoyment as Utah pulled away, and my elation as it became a rout, were all just as intense as in past history.
And judging by some of the signs, pictures, and other things coming out of this year's rivalry, I seem to not be the only one.
But of all the pictures, and there have been some good ones, this
image is my favorite.
By the way, the fact that the
Arby's sign was put up on Friday, makes it even funnier.
Programming Update
One downside of being in a big conference is that game times, and tv coverage isn't always determined until 10-14 days before the game. That's why there are a lot of TBD on Utah's schedule.
The first of these have now been decided as it has been announced that the Washington @ Utah game on October 1st will kickoff at 5:00 p.m. It will be televised on Fox Sports Net. This is channel 683 on DirectTV, 414 on Dish and 52 on Comcast.