BYU Sports

Time to get out of here and catch the last three quarters of the TCU-Utah football game.
First though, a few thoughts from BYU’s 24-19 win over New Mexico.
This was a classic case of a game where one downtrodden team’s confidence grew and grew the longer it stayed in the game.
By the middle of the third quarter, the Lobos were smelling an upset -- and the Cougars were starting to press.
It appeared that Max Hall’s 14-yard touchdown pass to Luke Ashworth on the final play of the third quarter would finally subdue to the Lobos, with BYU leading 24-13, but coach Mike Locksley’s team refused to quit.
“New Mexico seems to always play us tough, especially at home. I can remember every game I have played against them in my career. I don’t remember there ever being a blowout against them,” said Andrew George.
Crazy, but it took a couple sacks by Jan Jorgensen and Coleby Clawson to finally put UNM out. Prior to that, the defense was struggling to get stops.
“The defense pulled it out for us,” Max Hall said.
Hall finished completing 21 of 33 passes for 314 yards and two touchdowns, while Harvey Unga rushed for 50 yards, but was pulled by BYU coaches because Mendenhall said he “didn’t look right.”
More later.

New Mexico is putting up a fight at University Stadium.
BYU leads the Lobos 17-7, but the home team has been able to move the ball and keep things interesting in front of a sparse crowd.
BYU scored 17 unanswered points after the Lobos took a 7-0 lead with a touchdown on their opening drive. They went 80 yards in 15 plays, and capped it with Donovan Porterie’s 3-yard TD run.
The Cougars have scored on Manase Tonga’s 1-yard run, new papa Andrew George’s 29-yard reception and a 42-yard field goal by Mitch Payne.
Max Hall is 14-for-19 for 215 yards and a touchdown, with one interception.
He was picked off by a New Mexico defensive lineman when he underthrew a screen pass.
The Cougars have 259 yards of offense at the half, while New Mexico has 161.
Harvey Unga has rushed for 45 yards for BYU.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the first half is that tight end Dennis Pitta does not have a reception.

If you are watching the BYU-New Mexico game on television today and see BYU tight end Andrew George sleeping on the sidelines, don’t be alarmed.
George’s wife, Tawni, gave birth to a baby boy -- Jack Andrew George -- at 10:15 p.m. Friday night in Provo, and George was there for the joyous moment.
But now he’s in Albuquerque, preparing to go against the Lobos.
George was on BYU’s charter flight yesterday afternoon to New Mexico. But when the team landed, they learned that George’s wife had gone into labor.
So he jumped on a flight back to Salt Lake City, and made it by 8:30 p.m.
He caught a 6 a.m. flight back to Albuquerque this morning, and arrived at the stadium around 10 a.m.
In other words, he is working on just a couple hours sleep.

Hello from University Stadium here in Albuquerque, where the Cougars and New Mexico Lobos will kick off in about a half-hour.
It rained overnight here, so the field is a bit damp, and skies are grey and overcast right now.
The place seats 40,000 or so, but a crowd of only about 15,000 is expected, if that.
It looks like a thousand or so of those fans will be cheering for BYU, judging by the large group already sitting in the northeast corner of the stadium.
This is the Cougars’ final road trip of the season (not counting the bowl game in December), and they are trying to go 6-0 away from home for the first time since 2001.
A win would also give BYU a perfect 4-0 road record against MWC teams for the fifth time since the inception of the MWC.
How grey is it here in Albuquerque? Well, it is almost noon, and the stadium lights are on.

As can be expected when a football team is 0-9, radio talk show callers in Albuquerque, and those who write letters to the editor, are disgusted with the performance of the Lobos and coach Mike Locksley this season.
BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall, who coached at New Mexico for five seasons, said he knows the Lobos will get up for the Cougars, despite being 27-point underdogs
“At some point, there has to be, just the term we use -- simple successes -- and those then kind of ignite the fire and keep your program motivated and let everyone in the organization know there is a tangible result to the work,” he said. “And at some point you have to have a win to substantiate what you are doing. Otherwise, in a way your players might lose faith in yourself as the leader, or credibility of the schemes and what you are doing.
“I can’t speak for their program, but having been at New Mexico when we won three games, then four, then five, and just knowing how hard it was to win one more each year, it took a lot of extra energy, not only by coaches, but by everyone else in the program just to remain positive and keep going.”

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That said, Mendenhall said it hasn’t been difficult getting the Cougars to focus on the Lobos this week.
“It would maybe be a little bit different if our philosophy wasn’t already established. I talked with our seniors as well as our team going back two weeks ago after our game against TCU, just to remind them that our program’s goals really don’t have much to do with our opponent. It is how good can we get our particular team?” he said.
‘And that will be the focus this week, the next week and the next week. It is, we haven’t reached our potential yet, and I think we are moving forward. We have moved forward every game in some capacity, and so the idea now is, looking at how we just performed, how is it possible to improve that. Where can we target it? So that will be what I share with our team today.”