BYU Sports

The Cougars didn’t lose a single coach off its football staff last year, as all 10 guys opted to return to Provo after BYU lost to Arizona in the Las Vegas Bowl.
Will that happen again?
Tis the season for firings and hirings, with UNLV’s Mike Sanford the latest to get a pink slip.
Already, BYU’s coordinators are seeing their names pop up as candidates for head coaching openings around the country, but have to be considered longshots at this point.
Offensive coordinator Robert Anae was listed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal as one of many candidates to replace Sanford. Anae was UNLV’s offensive line and running backs coach in 1997 and 1998, but was let go when head coach Jeff Horton was fired by the Rebels.
I asked him Wednesday if he has any interest at all in going back.
“I can’t comment one way or another about that.,” he said. “Just that I feel for the families involved, the coaches and the staff members involved. Having been there at that place under that very scenario, it is not easy on families.
You know, I hope that those families make it through. Speaking from experience, our family made it through that.”
Anae said you are “never really baptized into this profession until you go through that. And it is a humbling experience, and my heart goes out to those families involved.”
To me, it sounds like he’s not really interested. And UNLV officials have said they would like someone with previous head coaching experience -- something Anae does not have.

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Tuesday, the Oregonian newspaper reported that BYU defensive coordinator Jaime Hill might be a candidate to replace Jerry Glanville at Portland State. The colorful Glanville abruptly resigned after just two years at PSU.
Hill was PSU’s defensive coordinator from 1993-96.
I asked coach Bronco Mendenhall about seeing his top assistants’ names show up in various places as head coaching candidates.
“I would encourage them all to, when they are ready, and if they have any other aspirations, I will help them any way that I can. My goal is to help coaches and players. If they choose to stay here, I would love it. But they should be mentioned. They are very good coaches,” he said.

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A couple of morning links for you.
Here’s more on my chat with Anae about Air Force’s defense.
And here’s the Tribune’s Martin Renzhofer’s look at keys to stopping the AFA triple option.

Apologies for the lateness of this practice report. I had to run off after practice ended to catch a Sterling Scholar deal at my daughter’s high school.
It was a bit nippy again in Provo tonight, but the Cougars practiced outdoors and under the lights.
Running back Harvey Unga didn’t practice again, and was still wearing that protective boot thing on his left ankle.
But Unga said he expect to play Saturday.
“It is OK,” he said. “It is coming along slowly but surely. It is one of those nagging injuries that is not anything too crazy to deal with. But it is one of those deals that is annoying. You just gotta fight through it.”
Per Bronco Mendenhall’s team rules, players must practice on Thursdays in order to play on Saturdays. Unga said he plans on practicing tomorrow.
“We will give it some more rehab tonight, tomorrow, and then give it a go tomorrow and see how it feels and whatnot, and then take it from there,” he said. “....As far as I am concerned, I am going to do my best to get on the field and try to do some stuff.”
Asked about the school career rushing yardage record he is closing in on, Unga said it is “definitely an honor. To think of all the running backs that I have grown up watching, it is kind of surreal to think that I have as many yards as whoever. “

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Mendenhall said BYU’s scout team has been doing a good job simulating Air Force’s offense in practice this week.
“You can’t ever simulate what they are doing perfectly, but Matt Marshall has taken no reps offensively this week. He volunteered a week ago to be our quarterback for the Air Force week, and so he’s the quarterback. We have Jo Jo Pili running fullback. JD Falslev is one wing, Stephen Covey is the other wing.
"Richard Wilson is playing fullback and tight end, and Mitch Mathews and Cody Hoffman are playing receiver.”
Marshall was a wishbone quarterback at Skyline High in Salt Lake City before walking on at BYU, where he is primarily a kick holder and a slot receiver.

With Tuesday night’s 87-53 win over Idaho State, BYU’s Dave Rose is now 99-34 in his fifth season.
That means he goes for win No. 100 on Friday when the Cougars play at Hawaii. The game will begin at 10 p.m. MT.
Against Idaho State, Rose unveiled his team’s depth -- 10 players logged 10 or minutes -- and the bench scored 30 points.
After the game, the coach talked extensively about depth being the “defining personality” of this years team, but noted it will take positive attitudes from all the players because there will be times when guys aren’t playing the minutes they believe they should be playing.
Here’s more from Rose on the lineup shuffling and the wealth of depth:
““We are still trying to get a lineup that we feel comfortable with starting the game and the game plan with, and then as you make your first two or three substitutions, sometimes that determines who starts the game because we are going to play a lot of guys, and I want to make sure as we evaluate this that we get the best combination for the first four or five minutes, and then the best combination for the next four or five minutes.
And then from there, you usually decide who plays depending on who is playing well. So we will figure that out here in the next couple of weeks.”
Is it good or bad that you don’t have a rotation settled by now?
“I think that’s a good thing. It really helps with our competition [in practice]. We were in this situation a few years ago when I felt that it really helped our intensity in practice. I think competition is a really good thing. We can’t keep shuffling around forever. We got to eventually figure it out, and I have full confidence we will be able to do that.”
Do you go into games thinking you want to get every guy some minutes?
“I think you go into every game with an idea of what you would like to do. And sometimes you can stay right that, and other times you deviate a bit. And that’s the fun part of coaching. But I don’t want to get in a situation where guys are wondering every night, how many minutes they are going to get.
“But there are going to be a couple of players on this team, like there are on every team, that will get extended minutes one night, then not as many minutes the next night. And their attitude will determine the chemistry of your team. And those are the players that I spend a lot of time with, and I really look forward to seeing how they respond.
“That’s a tough role to be in, but it is a role that every team has to have, because you have injuries, you have foul trouble. And then the flow of the game sometimes. Sometimes the game is a grind-it-out, not many possessions type of game, and you don’t have the luxury of playing as many guys. So guys have to react positively to how that works out.”

Dixie State College football coach Ron Haun announced today that he is retiring as the Red Storm coach after four years on the job.
Haun was head coach at Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho) from 1982-2002.
He went 12-32 in four seasons at Dixie State, after going 178-4-2 at Ricks, which dropped intercollegiate athletics when it became BYU-I.
Former BYU lineman Scott Brumfield, now DSC’s offensive coordinator, will serve at the St. George school’s interim coach.

I wrote for today’s paper an article about how successful BYU has been against Air Force the past five years, even while MWC powerhouses such as Utah and TCU have struggled against the Falcons.
One thing is evident in talking to BYU’s players the last few days, however. The Cougars have loads of respect for the the Falcons.
“They are tough. They execute well,” BYU quarterback Max Hall said. “You could say, out of all the teams, us and Air Force are probably the most similar, as far as the type of guys we have, and we are execution-based, and so it always comes down to who plays harder, and who executes the best. So that’s what is going to happen, I think on Saturday. But they are a great football  team. They are coached well, they are disciplined, and they got good guys. So it is going to be a fun matchup.”

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Another story in today’s newspaper is about running back Harvey Unga’s health. Coach Bronco Mendenhall said Unga, who has a sprained ankle, will play against Air Force.
Hall said it is extremely important that the Cougars are able to run the ball on Saturday, and that means they will need Unga the entire game.
“It is very important. Obviously, we are a much better offense when we are running the ball well and we are playing physical up front,” Hall said. “That [New Mexico game] was not the best game we’ve had up front, and obviously wasn’t our best game running the football. So I think if we can establish that, we can keep pounding them, and kind of do what we do and kind of methodically move the chains, and little by little take it out of them, that is when we are going to be successful.”

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Here are a few more links for you this morning.
Tribune columnist Kurt Kragthorpe visited with former BYU quarterback Cade Cooper, who is now at Southern Utah, and offers this report.
And here’s our report on last night’s basketball game, an 87-53 win for BYU over Idaho State.