Opinion by Greg Hansen: Cats just another meal for Cougars in their den
Opinion by Greg Hansen
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.02.2007
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PROVO, Utah
The more you examine BYU on your scouting videos, the more you get sucked in. You don't see USC size or UCLA speed. The Cougars aren't explosive, like Arizona State or Cal. They haven't beaten you on any recruits.
They play in a spacey league that may or may not include UTEP or Wyoming or even Hawaii. You'd have to look it up to be sure, because you rarely see them on TV.
So you're a little flat, unconcerned perhaps, even though it's your opener and you haven't beaten anyone of note, in a game that really counted, for 10 years. You give them the first punch and you never recover.
BYU beats you in every conceivable facet of the game except the one, punting, that isn't relevant. Beats you up physically. Plays with more heart. Exhibits better conditioning. Kicks you square in your aspirations.
You don't just lose 20-7, you are truly humbled. You leave LaVell Edwards Stadium wondering what all that winter weightlifting and what all those summer two-a-day skirmishes really meant.
Are we that bad? Is BYU that good?
And, my Lord, is that really Cal and USC and Oregon State on the upcoming schedule?
For 20 years, BYU has invited Big Name Schools with Big Name Players and Big Name Coaches to Provo and one by one they've sent them away muttering the same unhappy things. Miami. Texas. Georgia Tech. Notre Dame.
Whatever Arizona's coaches told the Wildcats about BYU and playing in Provo — especially this one: BYU will not fear you — the Wildcats weren't buying it. On the day Sonny Dykes' offense lurched and sputtered and didn't get out of the parking lot, the Wildcats phoned it in.
"You look at BYU's statistics — what've they won 11, 13 games in a row? — they don't lie,'' said UA defensive coordinator Mark Stoops. "Until somebody comes in here and beats them, well, I want to see it first.''
That team won't be Arizona. The Wildcats are no longer on BYU's future schedules, although Florida State, UCLA, Arizona State and Washington are. That is their problem.
"Everyone talks about (non-BCS schools) Boise State and TCU,'' coach Mike Stoops said. "I don't get it.''
That was his way of endorsing BYU as the nation's best-team-not-from-a-legit-conference.
The Wildcats weren't good enough, not even close, and that is a colossal worry at the start of Stoops' fourth season. No matter how optimistic your Wildcat bones, you cannot honestly see how Arizona can regroup in time to reach .500 by the bowl season. The October and November schedule is ridiculously tough.
"I thought we were a little bit further along,'' Stoops said. "Our margin for error is very minimal now.''
The dreadful debut of Arizona's 13th offensive system in its Pac-10 years was painful to watch. Dykes admitted to being "shocked.''
What happened? Arizona's early game plan was to run behind Chris Jennings, who was neither quick enough, powerful enough nor elusive enough to get to open space.
BYU was a step ahead of him.
By the time Arizona abandoned its Jennings-here, Jennings-there approach and wished that Chris Henry had not bolted for the NFL a year early, BYU had firmly taken command.
"I thought we played a little afraid, afraid to make mistakes in the first half,'' said Dykes. Indeed. The UA's first-half test drive of its newly installed offense wasn't unlike a 16-year-old taking a driver's license exam.
Slower. Be careful. Look out. Whoops.
Its fender was dented anyway.
"We wish it hadn't happened,'' said Dykes. "We didn't want it to. We didn't intend for it to happen that way today.''
If anyone had warned us about the possibility of a troublesome start to Dykes' creation, it was Stoops himself. At his Monday press conference he said, candidly, "and we're going to make a ton of mistakes on offense.''
So perhaps it was merely bad timing. When you implement a radically different offense, you don't want to do it against one of the few teams that actually runs the same offense, and therefore knows what you want to do before you want to do it.
Bad timing II: For the next two seasons, Arizona has plenty of break-in time, against Idaho, Toledo and New Mexico, and has even added The Citadel to an early schedule. Oh, how Mr. Dykes and Willie Tuitama could have benefited by opening against the Lumberjacks.
At game's end Saturday, BYU players took a victory lap around Edwards Stadium, slapping hands with many fans in the capacity crowd, reveling in a productive off-season that again rewarded its bold scheduling practices.
Arizona walked slowly from the field, greeted by the emptiness of an opening day pratfall.
"It wasn't all bad,'' said Stoops. "We'll be better next week, I'll promise you that.''
And you've got to believe him, because they couldn't be any worse.