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Provo • Not quite a year ago, BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall faced the same postgame questions after losing badly to an instate rival as he did Saturday night after the Cougars were embarrassed 54-10 by Utah.

Don't expect him to do something as drastic as firing his defensive coordinator — he released Jaime Hill last year after a 31-16 loss to Utah State on Oct. 1 — but do expect plenty of soul-searching, and possibly some schematic changes, from the entire staff as the Cougars turn their attention to Friday's 6 p.m. game at LaVell Edwards Stadium against Central Florida (2-1).

Clearly, Mendenhall, offensive coordinator Brandon Doman and every player made available to the media not named Jake Heaps was humbled after the loss and said some things have to change, although Mendenhall disputed a notion that the defensive players quit in the fourth quarter when Utah's John White ran virtually untouched for a pair of long touchdowns that turned a laugher into a Titanic-like collapse.

The theme this week: Can the Cougars bounce back from what could arguably be called the most humiliating loss in school history?

"Oh, I intend to bounce back, and hopefully I can provide that example for our team," Mendenhall said after the largest margin of defeat in his head coaching career. "If you are in coaching, one of the greatest challenges is to help a team bounce back from that. So that's what our intention is."

Central Florida will also be looking to recover from a disappointing loss, having fallen 17-10 to Florida International in a game that was tied 7-7 at halftime. But what the defensive-minded Knights bring to the table for another national ESPN broadcast is of little concern to the Cougars right now. If the ship and the season aren't sinking, they are taking on lots and lots of water. That's especially true on offense, where the Cougars have generated just three touchdowns in three games, all passes to Ross Apo.

"They will come back. These kids are resilient. They are unique young men. They will come back and be ready to go. But now I have got to give them a plan that is going to work," Doman said.

It is assumed that plan will include a way to pick up more than 11 rushing yards, as the Cougars had against Utah. In three games, BYU has a grand total of 118 rushing yards, ranking it 118th in the country. That's third-to-last, and worst in the country among teams that have played three games.

Mendenhall said he began plotting this week's recovery in the third quarter Saturday, perhaps drawing upon experience from 1-2 starts in 2006 and 2007 that ended up in successful seasons.

"With as poorly as we played today, though, the gap to get closed, and the timeliness to close it [is bigger]," he said. "... That's going to be a real challenge, but I am looking forward to it."

For his part, sophomore quarterback Heaps insisted the game would have gone differently if not for the seven BYU turnovers, three of which he committed. Again, though, failure to move the ball in the second half — only 96 of Heaps' 305 passing yards came after halftime — led to BYU's demise and kept the defense on the field way too long.

"If the guys aren't motivated to get this bad taste out of their mouth, then I don't know what is going to motivate anybody," Heaps said. "You know, a loss like this, especially when we knew the game could be so much different, you walk away from this game and you are shaking your head, just because of the fact that we gave them the game, we gave them the opportunity to score points. We gave them the short field."

And Utah gave BYU a thorough thrashing, one that will test every coach and player's resolve. —

Friday's game

P Central Florida at BYU, 6 p.m., ESPN