Provo • Saturday afternoon’s 41-20 win over lowly San Jose State produced some much-needed confidence and momentum for the BYU football team, which avoided what would have been a major embarrassment in front of its own fans.
It also produced a few what-ifs.
For instance, what if this particular game had been played in early September, when the Cougars were dealing with the likes of LSU, Wisconsin, Utah and fired-up Utah State on its own field? Would BYU still be 2-7, or would an early spark of self-assurance have given it the boost it needed?
If nothing else, that’s probably a question for schedule-maker Tom Holmoe, BYU’s athletic director, to ponder. The September schedule next year is almost as daunting, but with McNeese State visiting the fourth week after games at Arizona and Wisconsin and a home test against California.
Rugged early schedules are BYU’s lot as a college football independent, obviously. A lot of factors contributed to the seven-game losing streak, but a disheartened, injury-riddled team with a fragile psyche was as much to blame as anything else.
So what now?
“There are a lot of things we can fix, but I am just pleased that we got the win,” said coach Kalani Sitake. “It is something we have been needing. I am excited for that, but just really we have to get back to work and try to get the next one.”
The next one is against Mountain West Conference-leading Fresno State (5-3) late Saturday night at Bulldog Stadium (8:45 p.m. MDT, ESPN2). The Bulldogs had won four straight, including a 27-3 win over once-nationally ranked San Diego State, before inexplicably losing 26-16 to UNLV at home Saturday night. Jeff Tedford, who guided Cal to a 35-28 win over BYU in the 2005 Las Vegas Bowl, had his team playing well until the Rebels pulled off the upset.
The Cougars pounded FSU 52-10 in Provo in 2015 and FSU went 1-11 in 2016. For the first time since the opener, BYU should have the edge in confidence.
“Yeah, it was different, getting a win,” said receiver Micah Simon, who became the first Cougar to score more than one touchdown in a game this season. “So a lot of happy faces right now. We will continue this momentum into next week, and hopefully get a win against Fresno State, and keep it going.”
Simon said the Cougars go into every game with confidence, but building a 14-0 early lead sustained that confidence when it has waned in the past as BYU has fallen behind.
“We attack each week with that type of mentality, of having the utmost confidence to go out there and play to our potential,” he said. “And it all clicked this week, which was good for us. But like Tanner [Mangum] was saying, we left some plays out there that we could have made. I had some drops that I obviously want back. So we will just get back to work and hopefully minimize those mistakes.”
The Cougars were leading 7-0 at the time after scoring on their opening possession, but a de-cleating hit by fullback Brayden El-Bakri on SJSU kickoff returner Rahsheed Johnson set the tone and established that the Cougars were going to deliver on Sitake’s promise to play more aggressively.
“What I was trying to establish through that was to get more confidence,” Sitake said. “I think we did and it builds, but just having optimism isn’t good enough. To say that things will get better isn’t good enough, and you have to combine that with hard work and preparation, and when you get those combined and you do it right, then you have confidence and it shows on the field.”
Just after contributors such as Squally Canada and Talon Shumway returned from injuries, the bug hit others, including linebacker Fred Warner, running back KJ Hall and linebacker Grant Jones. All three left with injuries and didn’t return.
Sitake said after the game that he had not been briefed on the severity of any of the injuries, but losing Warner (their best player) and Hall (who had 156 combined yards in the first half alone) for any period of time would be damaging.
In Hall’s case, that is especially true since leading rusher Ula Tolutau is unlikely to return to action soon. Tolutau was charged with possession of marijuana on Oct. 8 and the citation was made public last Tuesday. He did not play against SJSU, and Sitake declined to talk about the freshman’s status when asked about it by The Salt Lake Tribune on Saturday.
