BYU Sports

The theme of BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall’s news conference yesterday was clear: There’s no need to panic or make any radical changes. Now if the Cougars don’t beat Wyoming on Saturday, that tune may change a bit. But for now, it appears BYU is staying the course.
Tribune columnist Kurt Kragthorpe wrote about that in this column in today’s newspaper.
I wrote specifically about the defense refusing to panic, and that story can be found here.
Thank goodness for Jan Jorgensen.
BYU usually tries to bring four players into its Monday news conferences, but it has been tough this year because so many players have classes around 10 a.m. Jorgensen doesn’t, and so he is called upon virtually every week to appear at the news conference.
And he always delivers good, insightful stuff. Monday was no different, as he discussed whether or not having a bye was helpful last week.
“It gave us a chance to look at things, look back at film, and get out there at practice and just work on the fundamentals and things we need to work on, and it just gave guys a chance to get healthy and get a jumpstart on Wyoming, which is all those things I think that a  bye week should be,” he said.
Jorgensen said the “biggest thing” the team got out of the bye week was the chance to regain some confidence.
“After a game like TCU, it is very easy to get down on yourself after losing the way that we did. To get down and think, what is wrong with us, blah, blah, blah,” he said. “It was nice to get in the film room and be able to really see the things, and realize that the things we are doing wrong, aren’t that drastic.”
The senior said for him personally, he is eager to get back on the field.
“The bye week was good. For me, I hate going into a bye week with a loss. That is tough. Because I want to get back on the field as soon as possible and kind of get that bad taste out of our mouth.
But with the loss coming the way it did, it gave us a good amount of time to reflect and I think having that extra week to look at that game was good. On a normal week, you watch that film on Monday and then you put that game behind you. But with an extra week to really look at that, it gave us a chance to see weaknesses and things that need to be changed., and so the bye week coming where it did can really help us out. Hopefully it does.”

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A reminder to Cougar basketball fans that the first exhibition game of the season will be played Thursday night at the Marriott Center (7 p.m.) against Trinity Western.
Here’s an update from Monday’s practice I filed for the newspaper.
Also, here’s a link to a story in the Las Vegas Sun about Johnathan Loyd, a senior at Vegas’ Bishop Gorman High School and the brother of current BYU guard Michael Loyd.
It doesn’t look like the Cougars have offered Johnathan Loyd a scholarship, but then again, he might end up playing football in college, rather than basketball.