Smokin' Some Cougar Bluegrass, Feelin' Good

BYU quarterbacks.  They're not from this planet.  They have such insulated, blind egos, which is not abnormal for any quarterback.  But at BYU, when they stand in as representatives of the team with their comments, they sometimes make their teammates look ridiculous, as Max Hall did after the Utah game two years ago.  This year, the difference from Hall's meltdown is that rather than winning a game in overtime prior to laying waste to the press room, this year the Cougars lost.  Perhaps coach Mendenhall needs to limit their exposure to the media after games, because once again, that's where the quarterback mystified the masses with his comments.  This time, the quarterback was Jake Heaps, and he likes his rose-colored glasses just fine, thankyouverymuch.

Jake Heaps almost holds onto the ball

  Let's start with his comments [and a few bits of personal commentary] and let you get a sense of what game he was playing (question topics and Heaps quotes taken from SLTrib.com).

In response to a question about his comfort level with the pace of the offense: 

Regardless of execution, in big games like this, if you don't turn the football over, then you win the game.
And our offense was able to move the football. Again, we were struggling to put the ball in the end zone. But most of that was turnovers.
Our opening drive [in which the center snapped the ball over Heaps' head, Heaps recovered, and proceeded to fumble in the end zone, leaving a Utah lineman to fall on it for a touchdown], not a big deal, I try to make a heads-up play by throwing that ball out of bounds, so we [could] punt it off, but it slips out of my hand.
Then the next few, just costly, especially when we are down in the blue zone, and we are about to score [the 'blue zone' is apparently the BYU version of the Red Zone, where normal teams go to score points, but Cougars apparently go in order to almost score points]. The momentum change there is so big, and quite frankly, I mean the true fact of the matter is, that this game could be much different, and that's the truth.
I don't care who wants to say what, you know, if we don't turn the football over in those critical situations, then this game is different.

On whether the offense took a step backward:

It depends on what aspect you want to look at [Oh, okay.  How about in the aspect of "winning games"?]. As far as taking care of the football and being the offense that our defense can count on, no, we didn't prove that today. Did we show that we can move the football, that we have talent? That we have the ability to be great and show potential in that? Yes.
And that's what I am going to hold onto, is the potential to be great. Because we can. And we will be great.  [One thing B-school has taught me is that potential counts for jack at the end of the game.  You don't step on the field to look back and say, "We got our butts kicked, but our potential?!?   Man we had some badass potential out there!"].
We are going to work our tails off this week. It is unexcusable [sic], and as an offensive guy, our defense battled, and they played hard. But we put them in constant situations where they were pinned up within the 20-yard-line. But they held them to field goal after field goal.
Like I said earlier, if we take care of the football, this game is a different story. Because of the way our defense was playing, and our offense was moving the ball well. 

On how to bounce back:

If the guys aren't motivated to get this bad taste out of their mouth, then I don't know what is going to motivate anybody. You know, a loss like this, especially when we knew the game could be so much different, you walk away from this game and you are shaking your head, just because of the fact that we gave them the game, we gave them the opportunity to score points. We gave them the short field. Other than a drive or two that they had, our defense was stopping them.  Utah's offense didn't do anything special.

I just love reading these quotes.  It is as though the quotes were taken from last year's game that went down to the last play, and BYU came up just short.  Makes it feel like such a close game.  Now let's take a look at the actual game that the rest of the world watched.

Utah:   54
BYU:  10

Follow Heap's fact train on how this could have been such a different game:

IF we hadn't turned the ball over seven times, twice by me inside our own 10 yard line, and
IF we had scored every time we almost scored, and
IF our totally superior awesome defense had been able to keep the Utah offense to only field goals, and
IF we had been able to run the ball against the Utah defense,
THEN we would have totally owned those clowns.

An old British friend of mine used to be fond of saying, "And if the queen had bollocks, she'd be the king."

Jake Heaps makes a heads-up play

If.  Potential.  Almost scored.  Would have been.  You don't hear winners talk about these things after a game.  Unless it is the winner saying, "If I'd had a chance to talk to that loser's girlfriend after the game, she'd have totally come to the after party with me.  I almost scored.  That would have been great."

The turnovers were huge, and he's right, that was entirely the offense's fault.  But his refusal to give the Utes any sort of credit for playing a great game is pretty blind.  While he put up more than respectable numbers himself (since we're not counting the turnovers; 27-50, 305 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 2 lost fumbles), he was forced to throw 50 times because the Utah defense held them to 11 TOTAL yards of rushing on 22 attempts.

BYU almost scoring in the Blue Zone

 Of course, Heaps is right about his defense.  They forced the Utah offense to punt once, so there was that silver lining.  They also held the Utes twice on fourth down.  AND they forced them to kick three field goals, the first of which the Ute's kicker missed by a half-mile.  That's six points, Jake.  What about the other 48 points?  The Utah offense found the endzone seven times.  Seven touchdowns vs. three field goals.  Even if every one of the touchdowns was reduced to a field goal, that's nine fields goals.  That's 27 points.  How are you with math, Jake?  27-10 = 17.  The Utes still would have beat you by 17.

Heaps holding onto his potential greatness

Yup.  Utah's offense only had one or two drives, but other than that, the Cougar defense was stopping them all night.  I mean, Utah's quarterback, Wynn, he only threw for 239 yards and two TDs.  And he threw a pick, too.  And it's not like their running game was any better than BYU's.  What's their running back's name?  White?  He only ran for 174 yards and three TDs.  Jeezy Pete's, people.  They didn't even get more than 500 yards in total offense.  481 yards is like, what, the distance I walk from my car to the fro-yo shop with my date? 

Utah's offense doing nothing special to the BYU defense

Somebody should have told the Cougars that the devotional on "Charity" this week did not mean giving the ball away. 

Heaps "giving" the Utes a chance to score

Heaps tripping over his own shoe laces.  NOT A BIG DEAL.

 I can't begin to tell you how much fun I had watching the game, and also writing about it today.  BYU quarterbacks never cease to put a smile on my face.  And the Cougar fans' tears are so sweet to the taste.

I've heard it said that ingratitude is one of the greatest sins.  So I want to take this opportunity to thank the BYU football team for so publicly and thoroughly soiling your drawers.  It made my weekend.