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Provo • Now what?
The BYU Cougars won the game that supposedly would define their season, and all anyone is asking of them is to do it again and again.
Beginning five days later.
"A natural tendency," BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said this week, "would be to try to feel good a little bit longer."
Sorry. A season that continues with Thursday's home opener vs. Houston at LaVell Edwards Stadium will have evolving themes, and this game is easily framed: Mendenhall's challenge is to make sure his team is prepared to play, only five days after devoting a lot of emotion to a 41-7 defeat of Texas.
The countdown clock in the lobby of the football offices seemed to be ticking in fast-forward fashion toward Thursday's kickoff. It's asking a lot of the Cougars to duplicate that kind of effort this soon, but that's where coaching comes into play.
"The coaches have done a great job of transitioning to Houston," said BYU running back Adam Hine.
Well, their unbeaten season depends on it. But this stuff is not easy. LaVell Edwards himself experienced a few unpleasant episodes after big wins. One example came the week after the Cougars' upset of No. 1-ranked Miami in 1990, when Washington State came to Provo and took a 29-7 halftime lead.
BYU managed to rally for a 50-36 victory, but Edwards felt compelled to rip his players afterward. He banned any further talk about a national championship — and his team was ranked No. 5 at the time.
The current Cougars are merely No. 25, but they're ambitious. They also seem to understand that it is impossible to go 12-0 without being 3-0.
The impressive aspect of Saturday's victory in Austin was that Texas pointed to that game after being hammered last September in Provo, and BYU more than matched the Longhorns physically and emotionally. The Cougars' third quarter was 15 minutes for the ages, with the offense producing 189 total yards and four touchdowns, and the defense and special teams delivering game-changing plays.
Right then and there, the Cougars solved the problem of second-half fades that had dogged them since the start of last season. BYU quarterback Taysom Hill ran for 68 yards and passed for 61 yards in the quarter, continuing the accurate throwing that has distinguished him in 2014.
BYU's receivers call themselves the "Bomb Squad," but all they really have to do to make this offense work is catch the short stuff. Defenses are so preoccupied with Hill's running ability that intermediate routes will almost always be open.
"He can run anytime he wants, and that puts a lot of pressure on the defense," said receiver Jordan Leslie. "… As a receiver, that's what you want — man coverage. That's what you dream of."
By completing 73 percent of his passes against UConn and Texas, Hill showed that he's becoming the complete quarterback that BYU envisioned. Now comes Houston, the team that allowed 411 passing yards to him at home last October — although BYU needed every bit of that total in a 47-46 victory.
BYU made winning more difficult than necessary that day, allowing touchdowns via a kickoff return and an interception return, and needing Hill's last-minute TD pass to escape.
If the Cougars intend to remain unbeaten for any significant chunk of this season, they'll have to produce some good finishes along the way.
Thursday's game is all about the start, though. BYU had better be ready to perform right away, at something close to its level of last weekend. Otherwise, Houston could replace Texas as BYU's season-defining opponent.
Twitter: @tribkurt