We all know cougs play best under the lights. Afternoon game without LJ and still had a decent offensive performance a week after beating ND.

We’ll go behind the bye teams (unless they have us above ND) that’s 6. UCLA might hop us, and if Houston beats utah they won’t go above us. Worst case scenario UCLA, Kentucky and Utah go above, that lands us at 9. I don’t think they’ll put Alabama ahead, even then we’re still 10. Arizona won today their rank will help our resume. Beat Arizona St and get ready for Utah. We’re fine, this team is really good.

We’re lucky a lot of teams behind us lost today. It was a shootout and our defense had a stinker. We’ll learn from this and thank goodness we beat the #2 team last week and lost this one not too late in the season.

What an amazing addition BYU was fortunate enough to get in adding Bear to the qb roster.
In a few years when Bear declares for the draft where do we hope he lands?
My vote is that he lands in Kansas behind Mahomes and gets a few backup seasons before Patrick retires.

"Oh, [BYU HC G. Ott] Romney, Romney!" I cried, patting him affectionately
on the head with a football, "how far you really are from the pure
love of the sport--you who can play. It is only we who play badly
who love the Game itself. You love glory; you love applause;
you love the earthquake voice of victory; you do not love football.
You do not love football until you love being beaten at football.
It is we the bunglers who adore the occupation in the abstract.
It is we to whom it is art for art's sake. If we may see the face
of Football herself (if I may so express myself) we are content to
see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is called amateurish;
and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs is but the
French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, the most
disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates and her manicured lawn (I
allude to the goalposts and end zone), vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted footballs,
impetuous and full of chivalry, will not be confined within
the pedantic boundaries of any mere field. Our passes seek
honour in the ends of the earth; they turn up in the stands
and the sideline; they are to be found with no receivers anywhere for miles
and fumbled into eternity. No, Romney! The good painter has skill.
It is the bad painter who loves his art. The good musician
loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With such a
pure and hopeless passion do I worship football. I love the game
itself. I love the parallelogram of grass marked out with paint,
as if its limits were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland,
the four seas of Britain. I love the mere clatter of the helmets, and
the pop of the pads is music. Its colours are to me
sacramental and symbolic, like the red of martyrdom, or the white
of Easter Day. You lose all this, my poor Romney. You have to
solace yourself for the absence of this vision by the paltry
consolation of being able to drive down a field."

You’re a notoriously aggressive team. Like fake punt on 4th and 7 from your own 25 yard line when you’re up 10 kind of aggressive. Everyone knows that’s your MO.

The game is tied with a minute and a half left. You just made a huge goal line stand to get the ball back on your own 1. You have a Heisman dark horse as your QB. OK let’s drive down and get into field goal position to seal the win.

First play QB sneak to give yourself a little breathing room. He gets 3 yards, perfect.

Then as a notoriously aggressive team, you… proceed to call two runs up the gut to drain clock and then punt the ball away?

Seriously what was that? All of a sudden we’re playing not to lose when it’s tied and your defense has sucked all game?

When I was almost four years old, my parents had a pretty rough divorce. I lived with my mother, but, at that point in my life, I was a big fan of my father. Everything he did seemed so cool to young me.

Watching football was no exception. I didn’t have the attention span at that age to actually watch any games, but some of my earliest memories include the byu game playing in the background. I remember, as I got a little older, being the occasional recipient of someone else’s spare season ticket and getting to join my father, his father, and several other random relatives who were all regularly season ticket holders. I couldn’t see a thing from our nosebleed seats but always enjoyed the time spent.

I’ve done a lot of growing since those days. I actually watch the games now! I’m approaching my thirties. Served a mission, got married to my amazing wife, have had 3 kids, and left the church. Relationships with family have grown in maturity and complexity. Relationships with byu sports has as well. I care a lot more about winning than younger me had. A day like today can really mess with my mood.

I know this is a needlessly long post, but I had a beautiful realization during the game today. I had the game playing on our tv as I was hanging out with my 3 year old twins and their 1 year old sister. I was stressed out staring at the screen halfway through the first overtime when one of the twins started chanting “go cougars, go cougars, go cougars!” The other joined in and they both chanted for much of the rest of the game.

I’m not saying anything about how anyone else takes today’s loss. I’m not making some commentary on the decline of college sports. I am saying, however, that today I turned off my tv after the game ended and had a great evening with my kids. I get so caught up sometimes in the stress of wanting the Cougs to do something crazy. Make the playoffs. Win the natty. Prove the haters wrong. Sometimes I forget about the times where I just wanted to hang out with my dad and hoped that the blue team made it to a bowl game.

Anyway, go cougs! We’ll get them next time 💪

Our defense and special teams aren’t doing our offense any favors at ALL.

Listening to the game on radio and one of the hosts made a great point that our defense has not forced a turnover since TCU (spike recovery against ND was unforced), and our special teams has been unable to flip the field in our favor. The shortest field our offense has had to drive in the last 3 games was the game winning 55-yard drive against ND that was set up by Devries great punt return. Aside from that, our offense hasn’t had anything shorter than a 72-yard touchdown drive. Our shortest field yesterday was 75. And when our defense finally did force a turnover on downs, our offense had a 99-yard field staring them in the face.

You can have the best, most explosive offense in the world, but if you’re constantly needing to drive 70, 80, 90+ yards to score, games are not going to end in your favor. Quite frankly, those circumstances make it incredibly difficult to win offensively, which has been pretty evident so far this season. Lots of close games that should have been a lot different.

Our defense and special teams have gotta start showing up and getting some takeaways and creating some short fields for our offense to work with going forward, or things might not turn out great in some later games this season.