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FORT WORTH, Texas - Bronco Mendenhall no longer thinks like the young defensive coordinator he once was.

He still fills that role, besides functioning as Brigham Young's head coach. It's just that Mendenhall has matured as a defensive coach, learning to look beyond statistics to find what's really important.

In Thursday's case, that was BYU 31, Texas Christian 17.

The Cougar defense gave up 437 total yards, 44 more than TCU allowed.

"Yards are meaningless," Mendenhall said. "There was a point in my career when that mattered."

All that counted Thursday was "17." The Horned Frogs managed to score only 10 points in the first 58 minutes of the game, and that was not enough to keep them in position to win.

Until surrendering that unimportant touchdown at the end, BYU had held the Frogs on three consecutive possessions. Those stops came in the fourth quarter, at the point when TCU's scheduling advantage logically should have kicked in.

Much was said about BYU's having to prepare quickly for TCU after having played Utah State last Saturday. The real issue was the fact the Frogs had been off since Sept. 16, giving themselves a chance to rest and have some injured players return. Yet they were the ones who faded in the fourth quarter, and Mendenhall was proud of the way his team performed under difficult circumstances.

"That can't be understated," he said.

It all came down to TCU's inability to finish drives. The Frogs gained 209 yards in the first half, yet scored only three points. TCU reached the BYU 33-yard line and punted, lost a fumble on a play that started at the Cougar 10 and missed a field goal after driving to the 22.

"Overall, we made plays when we needed to," said BYU linebacker Cameron Jensen.

And the TCU offense did not. "We have to quit killing ourselves inside the 20," said coach Gary Patterson. "When you get down there against good teams, you have to put touchdowns on the board."

Actually, the Frogs failed only once inside the 20. That's when they had a second-and-7 play at the 10, and quarterback Jeff Ballard threw an incompletion, then was blindsided by linebacker David Nixon on third down. Russell Tialavea recovered Ballard's fumble and BYU maintained its 3-0 lead.

It was Ballard's first loss as a starter. He had gone 11-0 since taking over in the third quarter of a win over BYU last September in Provo.

So even though Jensen grimaced when informed of TCU's yardage, he was feeling good. One problem, however: "I'm too tired to celebrate right now."

Certainly, the Cougar defense packed a lot of preparation time and effort into a few days, besides having to be on the field for 82 plays. It helped that the temperature and humidity were unseasonably low for a 5 p.m. kickoff in late September in Texas. BYU's ability to rotate defensive players also was a factor.