By Michael Barzee
There is more to football than just points scored, yards gained and turnovers. The intangibles of football are often overlooked especially in a rivalry game.
For the Cougars on Saturday, emotions got the best of them in a 41-34 overtime loss to Utah.
?I think we let our emotions take over? BYU running back Fahu Tahi said. ?We were more worried about trash talking than executing. ? I was just as guilty as anyone.?
For Tahi, it was his last home game in his long BYU career. Tahi finished the day with five carries for 15 yards, along with four receptions for 29 yards. However, Tahi wasn?t the only one who got caught up in the emotion of the game.
?In the first half it was a little rowdy,? BYU running back Curtis Brown said. ?There was cheap stuff all over the field. You can?t get caught up in that if you want to be successful?I had too much emotion and not enough focus.?
The difference between Brown in the first and second half was like night and day. In the first half, Brown carried the ball 13 times for 52 yards and had three receptions for 16 yards. On the first play of the game, Brown ran a route down the sideline and was wide open. But he dropped a Beck pass that hit him right in the hands.
?We did not execute with precision or composure in the first half,? BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall said. ?The second half was a different rhythm and it showed.?
Indeed it was. On the first play of the second half, the Cougars ran the same play as the first play of the game. This time Brown caught the ball for 37 yards and continued to play well, compiling 101 yards rushing on seven carries and two touchdowns in the half. One of his two touchdowns came on a 64-yard run to the outside, breaking numerous tackles on his way to the end zone. Brown also led the team in receptions with seven and receiving yards with 84. Of the 489 total yards of offense for the Cougars, Brown accounted for 237 of them.
In his last game of his BYU career, receiver Todd Watkins also got caught up in the emotions of the game.
?It was the extracurricular stuff that was going on,? Watkins said. ?Trash talking, that is not our style and we got sucked into the way Utah plays.?
Like Brown, Watkins and Beck turned in a better second half. Watkins was on the receiving end of one of Beck?s two passing touchdowns in the final half. Beck managed only 102 yards passing in the first half but came out strong in the second half, finishing the day with 309 yards passing.
Despite this loss, the Cougars are 6-5 and have a winning season and more than likely a bid to the Las Vegas Bowl. The winning season comes after three consecutive losing seasons.
?I look forward to another game,? Mendenhall said. ?I look forward for a chance to grow in this program. I look forward to practice more. I look forward to develop our young players. I look forward to seeing our senior getting to play in one more game.?
Not so sweet home: At the end of the 2000 season, when legendary coach LaVell Edwards retired, the football stadium was renamed in his honor. Since the renaming, the Cougars have a 13-10 record at home and haven?t had a winning record at home since 2002 when they went 4-2. The lost to Utah on Saturday gave this year?s Cougars a 3-3 home record.
Bowl bid: Representatives from the Las Vegas Bowl were on hand at the game. Had BYU won, they would have extended the invitation to play in the bowl game to the Cougars at the end Saturday?s contest. Despite the loss, the Cougars are still the leading contenders from the MWC for the bowl game and an announcement could come this week, possibly as early as today. A PAC-10 team is scheduled to play a MWC team in the Las Vegas Bowl, which is set to play on December 22.