This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

My premise was that the Cougars should be happy about being 2-2, given their September schedule which is rated by Jeff Sagarin as the second-most difficult in the country. They could be anywhere from 3-1 to 0-4, and I think they would be 3-1 if Taysom Hill were still healthy. I don't think even Hill could have led them to a win at the Big House. They were just simply overmatched.

Anyway, I mentioned in the article that I had asked five Cougars a hypothetical question on Monday or Tuesday. If someone had told them in August that they would be without Jamaal Williams, Hill, and Travis Tuiloma for all but the first half of the Nebraska game (Hill and Tuiloma) would they have taken a 2-2 record?

Most said no.

Here are their responses:

Receiver Colby Pearson: "I've thought about that, and how I felt is if someone told me we went 3-1, I would have been happy with the surprise. 2-2, I felt like we could have done better. Through four weeks, it would have been different, yeah.

But being 3-1, I would have been pretty happy, especially with the guys we've been missing and stuff. We were all kind of disappointed and stuff.

Like Bronco said, we are back to neutral right now, starting over. We have lost the hype, I guess you could say. It is just us now and we will start over again, and we could still make something great out of this season."

Linebacker Jherremya Leuta-Douyere: "Oh no, you want to win every single game. It doesn't matter who you are playing. We were able to compete with anyone on any given day. You always go in expecting to win. You know, 2-2, it should be a different record. But we can't control that, and it is what it is."

Receiver Terenn Houk: "No. I mean, we wanted to go 4-0 no matter what. It is really frustrating to think that we could have done that. I mean, Michigan was just like UCLA. There is nothing they did that was different than UCLA. They man-pressed us, and they put the same amount of guys in the box. But we just didn't execute. And that is frustrating to think that we lost by one point against UCLA, but then we got routed by Michigan."

Defensive end Graham Rowley: "That is a really good question. I would have thought we could have done better. Of course, those were two big losses. Dang, that's a hard question. I believed since that first game against Nebraska that we were going to go undefeated, or go 4-0. But just some things happened. Tanner [Mangum]is a great player. And we got some good running backs, too. Adam Hine has really stepped it up.

Algie [Brown] will be back soon. I don't know how to answer that question, honestly. … We have had some really good games. We should be 4-0, which is kind of disappointing. Just mistakes that we've made. It is not like the teams have been way better than us. There is no way. We were a contender in all those games. This last week might not have seemed like it; they were a better football team on Saturday."

Running back Nate Carter: "No. You never plan on [a loss], or injuries… I wouldn't have wanted to believe [that Williams would withdraw and Brown and Hine would be injured] that's for sure. Those are some of my best friends. And I really mean that when I say that. I think there are a lot of pride in our friendship that we have in the running back room, so it is really, really really hard to see those guys go down. You compete with them and you love them, and honestly I think we are going to be ready to move forward. I probably would not wanted to believe that, to answer your question."