This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Provo • Brigham Young University football coach Bronco Mendenhall deserves a lot of credit for taking a program coming off three straight losing seasons and turning it into a perennial winner. The 45-year-old coach is 62-24 in his seventh season, having posted the exact same record as the coach up the road who was also hired late in 2004, Utah's Kyle Whittingham.
But if there's a trend that has haunted Mendenhall's tenure at BYU, it is that the Cougars are just mediocre against teams that finished the season with a winning record. Mendenhall's latest failure in a so-called "big game" came Oct. 28, when a comical array of special teams errors and turnovers led to a 38-28 loss to TCU, which is now 7-2 and ranked 24th in the USA Today/ESPN coaches poll.
With the notable exception of the 2009 season-opening win over third-ranked Oklahoma, the Cougars have mostly been unable to rise to the occasion under Mendenhall.
BYU could be called Barometer U. under Mendenhall. Lose to the Cougars, and count on a subpar season. Beat them, and you are probably headed to a decent bowl game, at worst.
Heading into the easiest stretch of their 2011 schedule — home games on Saturday against 2-7 Idaho and Nov. 19 against 3-6 New Mexico State — the 6-3 Cougars will not get another shot at a team with a stellar record in 2011, making the TCU loss even harder to swallow for their fanbase.
Their Dec. 3 opponent, Hawaii, is 5-4 after losing to Utah State, but travels to 5-3 Nevada this week. Their Armed Forces Bowl opponent, most likely the third-best team in Conference USA, will have at least three losses. The most likely candidates now are Tulsa or SMU. Both are 6-3, and both still have to play 9-0 Houston.
Cougar fans don't need to be reminded that their team is 0-3 against teams with winning records (7-2 Texas, 5-4 Utah and 7-2 TCU) and 6-0 against teams with a combined record of 16-37.
Sticking to his oft-stated philosophy that "every game is big," Mendenhall said last week when asked about failures against tough teams that he has defeated the last six Pac-12 teams he has faced, perhaps forgetting the 54-10 debacle at the hands of new Pac-12 member Utah in September.
"Just consistency," he said, when asked what it will take for the Cougars to play better in games against quality opponents. "I mean, it is going to be step by step by step by step. ... I guess it depends on what you consider a big game. To me, every game is big. Whatever games are labeled the big ones, it is frustrating if we turn the ball more frequently than we need to, or we make too many mistakes."
The main culprit is turnovers. The Cougars had three against TCU, seven against Utah and two against Texas.
"My job is just to remain consistent, consistent, consistent, consistent, and hopefully the players, eventually, no matter what team we play and where, will do the same thing," Mendenhall said.
Mostly, the Cougars under Mendenhall win when they are supposed to win, and lose when they are supposed to lose, although many forget they were actually favored to beat the Utes on Sept. 17. They were double-digit underdogs against Texas and TCU and slight favorites before their 14-13 win at Ole Miss, a win that has been tarnished greatly now that the Rebels are 2-7.
Mendenhall's philosophy of refusing to treat some games as more important than others has drawn criticism from outsiders, but his players seem to buy into it.
"We trust coach Mendenhall and what he does. We play our hardest and try to execute the game plan the best we can. Yeah, I would say so," said center Terence Brown when asked Monday if Mendenhall does enough to prepare the Cougars for top-notch opponents.
"Well, my philosophy is to be a lot more of a teacher than a screamer," Mendenhall said after the fourth-straight loss to TCU. "I am more comfortable doing it that way, and I like to educate more than anything else. And our players are willing, and they will do what we ask them to do. And they did for a lot of that game. There was just one part of that game, in particular, that, man, I had no idea it would be like that. It was a hard one to overcome."
Twitter: @drewjay —
BYU football coaching records
Based on opponents' record at end of season:
Coach Overall vs. winning teams vs. losing teams vs. .500 teams
LaVell Edwards 257-101-3 84-80-2 149-17-1 24-4-0
Gary Crowton 26-23 7-14 15-8 4-1
B. Mendenhall 62-24 18-17 33-3 11-4
Source: Cougarstats.com —
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