After an exciting offseason for BYU athletics, it is finally time to start playing some games. The NCAA football season officially kicks off tonight and BYU’s first game is this Saturday vs. The University of Washington Huskies, coached by former BYU All-America QB Steve Sarkesian.

Here are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the 2010 version of BYU football:

Strengths:
- A tremendous offensive line led by All-America candidate left tackle Matt Reynolds. The line is experienced, huge, and deep.
- A solid and experienced defensive backfield. BYU lost their free safety but the other three starters and most back-ups are back with more experience.
- Perhaps the deepest receiving corps in BYU history. Lots of talent and depth at BYU receiver right now.
- Speed on defense. While much of the defense is short on experience these guys are faster than your typical BYU defense.

Weaknesses:
- Inexperience at QB. Bronco will be using both true freshman Jake Heaps and Junior Riley Nelson this season. All eyes will be on these two newcomers. Heaps has the big arm and big pedigree but Nelson has more experience, is a scrambler, and is known as a fiery competitor.
- No Harvey Unga. BYU has some young talent at RB but it hurt to lose our all time leading rusher.
- Inexperience at tight end. With Pitta and George gone, five guys are vying for playing time at TE still.
- Unsettled middle linebackers. Looks like five guys will be shuttling through the two MLB spots as well.

So with that here are my season predictions:
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It’s on folks.

SLTrib
San Jose Mercury
ESPN

Official statements:
BYU
MWC
WCC

Ever since Utah announced it was leaving the Mountain West Conference to join the Pac10 there have been rumors swirling about what BYU would do. The three main options were to sit tight in the MWC, hope for an invite to the Big12, or go independent. Well the Big12 invite has not arrived so it appears BYU has taken its fate into its own hand and decided to go independent. Here are some links:

SLTrib saying it is a done deal
Deseret News calling it a done deal too
ESPN predicting it last night
CBS Sports

It does indeed look like a done deal. BYU football will reportedly go independent and all other BYU sports joining the WAC starting in the Fall of 2011. This is very similar the the arrangement Notre Dame has with the Big East.

Should be an interesting week for BYU sports fans. Stay tuned.

The dominoes have officially begun to fall folks. Colorado just officially announced that it is leaving the Big12 to join the Pac10.

What is next? Nebraska is widely expected to leave the Big12 to join the Big10. If that happens then the Big12 is reportedly dead. The other big dogs (Texas and Oklahoma) don’t want to stay in the Big12 if Nebraska is gone. So there is a decent chance that most if the Big12 South will also defect to the Pac10 creating the Pac16.

If for some reason Nebraska stays in the Big12 that would be good news for both Utah and BYU. Utah is first in line to join CU in the Pac10 and BYU would surely be a top candidate to replace CU in the Big12. If the Big12 implodes things get messier because it would leave schools like Kansas and Kansas State without a conference at all. Maybe the Mountain West would be able to recruit them in that case.

Lots and lots of dominoes yet to fall folks. We’ll try to keep you updated in this thread as news goes comes in.

The new men’s college basketball rankings came out this morning and the 20-1 BYU Cougars are ranked #10 in the coaches poll. This is the highest ranking for the Cougs since the ’87-88 team. I think this is the best BYU hoops team since the Danny Ainge days.

BYU is led by Junior point guard Jimmer Fredette out of New York state. I have long thought Jimmer was the best player on the team — ever since he looked like the best BYU player on the floor in the NCAA tournament game his freshman year. This year no one can deny Jimmer is one of the best guards in the country. He really turned heads nationally at the end of December when he dropped 49 points on Arizona in Tucson, setting a new BYU scoring record and a new McKale Center scoring record in the process. The only problem was that he came down with a case of mono right after that game and it has taken the better part of a month for him to bounce back.
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I predicted before the season that this year’s BYU Men’s Hoops team would make it to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament despite not winning an NCAA Tourney game since ’93. BYU is pulling through for me nicely so far. At the halfway point of the regular season BYU is 15-1, ranked in the top 25, and looking very strong. Tonight BYU took down MWC title contender UNLV by the score of 77-73. The win is impressive but much more so when you consider that BYU’s star player (Jimmer Fredette) wasn’t able to contribute much due to a bout with strep throat he is trying to recover from. In addition, the second best player on the team (Jackson Emery) was gimpy with an injured heel. So the win tonight was especially impressive with the role players and bench coming up big. Congratulations to the Cougs on a great win and a great first half of the season.

In other BYU hoops news: Jimmer Fredette broke the 48 year old BYU single game scoring record last week when he dropped 49 points on the Arizona Wildcats in Tucson. In so doing Jimmer also broke the scoring record in the McKale Center. The feat garnered Jimmer the National Player of the Week honor as well as the MWC player of the week award. I saw that game and it was a truly spectacular display. Congratulation to Jimmer on that.

And Go Cougs!

First, the BYU men’s basketball team scored 110 points in their victory over Nevada today. Jimmer dropped 33 on the Wolfpack alone. The only problem is the Cougs gave up 104 points in the victory. But a win is a win and Nevada is a solid program. BYU is now 11-1 and plays Nebraska tomorrow. If they win that one don’t be surprised if the Cougs crack the top 25 this week.

Ok, on to the other BYU game. At halftime of the Las Vegas Bowl BYU leads Oregon State 23-7.

Things looked ugly at first. With the wind howling at 40 mph in the face of BYU the offense was getting no where and then OSU scored a touchdown that looked way too easy. But BYU suddenly gathered themselves and marched 80 yards down the field directly into the head wind to score a tying touchdown. Right after that the wheels started coming off for The Beavers. First a backwards pass was dropped and BYU scooped it up for a TD. In the second quarter OSU was facing the wind and had two punts go all of 6 yards. Plus OSU got several penalties that helped BYU. The result was another BYU touchdown and field goal. I’m pleasantly surprised at how well things are going at the half. I’ll live blog the rest of the game: (more…)

The game came down to the wire again this year. As with the ’06 and ’07 games, BYU took care of business in the end. Rock on Cougars.

And for your viewing pleasure, I present the last play of the game:

and of course: (more…)

The football team took down AFA fairly easily today. Utah is next.

Also the men’s basketball team overwhelmed Hawaii last night and moved to 3-0.

No, seriously. See here.

Oh, and the BYU football team managed a win this weekend too.

52-0. Just the way I like it.

I’ll blog as we go.

First Quarter
- First defensive series has BYU coming hard after Andy Dalton and it really works. Three and out.
- First offensive series for BYU is a steady diet of Harvey Unga and quick passes. When Hall takes longer to pass he gets sacked.
- TCU gets the ball back and starts moving the ball. The D-line again can’t get the QB and that leads to big pass plays (like we have seen a lot this year).
- On the second series the TCU offense completely bullies the BYU D. It results in a Frog touchdown that seemed too easy.
- Three and out for BYU followed by another easy touchdown for TCU. 14-0. Something big needs to change or BYU will be blown out of this game.
- Next BYU possession — three and out again. That is just the first quarter. This could get reeeal ugly folks.

Second Quarter (more…)

BYU survived a motivated SDSU team in San Diego today and took down the Aztecs 38-28.

It was a fairly pedestrian showing by BYU but a win is a win and no one will remember the score if BYU can beat TCU next week. The good news is that the passing attack of TCU isn’t nearly as good as SDSU’s. The bad news is the TCU defense is a lot better than SDSU’s.

Since I have a degree from both schools I was pleased with how good SDSU looked today. I think the Aztecs are on their way out of the MWC cellar and ready to be at least a second tier team in the conference. They seem to have better coaches and a better culture overall than I have seen on Montezuma Mesa in a long time.

Some random thoughts on the game:

- Andrew Rich got burned on pass coverage a LOT in this game. The guy can really hit but he was a bit exposed as a pass defender I thought.
- How about that Scott Johnson? Before the half he made a shoestring tackle on a log pass play to save a touchdown and a couple of plays later intercepted the ball to keep the Aztecs off the board at all that drive. That was huge.
- Max Hall looked really good. Several touchdowns and no interceptions. But the best play of the game was his deciding to run the ball in at the goals line with the clock winding down when everyone (including his own team) thought he was going to spike it at the end of the half. That was cool.
- Look for Dennis Pitta on Sundays starting next season. The dude may be the best BYU tight end of them all before career is over and that is saying a lot.
- Manase Tonga is underrated. Tailback Harvey Unga was ok today but he is a lot better when Manase is playing fullback.
- It is nice to seen newer offensive players like Hafoka, Thompson, Diluigi, and even Ashworth really contributing. BYU has a lot of weapons.
- I loved the Jorgenson sack at the end. Not only did it finally ice the game but he added to his conference record stats.

TCU is up next week in Provo. This is a major measuring stick game for this team and season. The game has massive conference title implications.

BYU beat the UNLV Rebels tonight 59-21.

It was a fun game to watch as a BYU fan. The team looked really solid. Max threw for tons of yards with no interceptions. Harvey ran all over the the UNLV defense racking up something like 150 yeard and three touchdowns in three quarters. There were some great plays by other players as well. A tremendous interception by Jordan Pendleton, two interceptions by Scott Johnson, and some great sacks by Coleby Clausen. Some great catches as well by Andrew George, Pitta, Chambers, Thompson, Hafoka, and several of the running backs. The other running backs took advantage of the porous UNLV defense as well. And O’Neil Chambers even had a 97 yard kickoff return.

UNLV did score a touchdown on a kickoff return and punched two other TD’s in as well but giving up 14 points ain’t bad for the defense.

Did I mention that Harvey was a monster out there? When that guy is healthy he is incredible. Nice win. BYU will look to do it again next week in San Diego in preparation for the showdown with TCU in two weeks.

Utah State gave a valiant effort and the last second touchdown made it seem closer than it really was, but the only thing that kept this one from getting boring was Max Hall’s repeated interceptions.

The defense did a pretty good job overall against an Aggie offense that has proven to be fairly potent. The offense was solid except for the turnovers. Not a great showing but not bad either by the Cougs. As long as the Cougars keep improving it should be a very interesting game in three weeks when TCU rolls into Provo. Next week is a trip to Vegas.