BYU vs Washington

Like everyone, I can't wait for the season to start and I'm especially looking forward to watching this game. I was at the game a couple years ago up in Seattle, in the endzone where Jake Locker got called for that now infamous unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Here's my take on that call before we get started into this year's game. It was kind of a nitpicky call. BYU is lucky it got called too, because I all but guarantee that Locker would have ran it in for a 2 point conversion the next play. I don't know if the refs HAD to call it.

But having said that, you know as a college player that there are certain things you can't do after scoring a touchdown. One of them is throwing the ball up in the air. The only time I could have gotten away with anything I wanted was the last play vs Utah. I could have done ANYTHING, the game was over! And I stand up and put my arms up, lame. I've thought about what I could have done that would have been way cooler. But I think part of the reason I didn't have a cooler celebration in mind is because you don't think of touchdown celebrations as a college player, at least I didn't. Because it's a penalty. You can't tell me Jake Locker was more excited than I was in those moments. You don't throw the ball up, and it would have been more surprising to me at the time if they had not thrown the flag than that they did. Like I said, BYU was lucky they did...

On to this year! There are a ton of question marks with BYU, for me the biggest is the offense, specifically the quarterback. Riley could end up doing amazing, or he could struggle. In your first real college game, I'd say odds are on struggle's side.

They are going to miss Harvey big time. With Harvey I would expect their offense to still be potent. Without him, it's another big question mark. Who will step up and be the man? One thing BYU was missing last year (and those of you who read my blog know I harped on this after every losing game!) was playmakers. Someone has to step up and turn the momentum back to your side when things don't look good.

Last year, when things went bad, they snowballed. This year, someone has to step up with the mental toughness to not let that happen. I don't care about a loss if you play well. But it's unbearable to watch a team getting stomped and no one really doing anything to resist it, especially if it's your alma mater! On offense and defense, I just want to see some big plays.

Defensively, I'm not going to put this down as a question mark, because it's all but a fact to me at this point, I can't envision BYU's D being able to contain Jake Locker. I hope they do, but it's rare in the past few years to see BYU's D contain even an unathletic quarterback from scrambling for first downs on third and mediums. I've seen Locker play a few times and he's an incredible athlete and great scrambler. In the past he's been a very inaccurate passer, he's got a very strong arm, but every time I've seen him he's been very inconsistent hitting his targets. But last year he improved a bit, and with Sarkisian's coaching and all the hype for him coming out his senior year as a possible number one draft choice, I can't see him not dialing it in this year. His scrambling alone is going to be a nightmare, and if he's throwing well, it could be a long day...

Since everyone knows you can't write about a game without making a certain prediction, here's my take: I see BYU's offense showing promise, but being inconsistent. I see Washington's offense converting 3rd downs on scrambling, but for some reason I'm getting a vibe that they'll have trouble punching it in consistently in the red (or blue or green) zone (whatever it's called now inside the 20!). I don't know why, but that's what I'm feelin. However I think in the end, Locker's scrambling will be too much for BYU sadly. But I have been wrong before. I'm just excited for Saturday, and I hope that BYU brings it! Brings what? IT! Ha ha!

Go BYU!!!

New Season! General Good and Bad of Fall Camp

It's football season again! I have to say I'm still getting used to (and not really loving) football season being here and not putting on my pads and helmet with everyone else! But there's no denying that there is just a certain feeling in the air when football season is around the corner. It's funny but one thing I recognize the most when I get out on the grass is the smell. Maybe it's the grass, maybe it's mixed with sweaty pads and jerseys, but whatever it is, I guess it's just what football smells like to me. Kind of weird I guess.

Fall camp is tough. It's just really a grind. Your body is tired, your mind is tired. You can be emotionally drained from trying to win out a spot on the team. It's just a ton of work. The bad part of camp is just the seeming eternity of it. It takes what seems like months for a few weeks to go by. Each day seems like a few and they all kind of run together. You have to find a way to deal with the heat. You get bumps and bruises and aches all over, but usually, unless it's serious, you have to just play through it. I used to take a few ibuprofin before almost every practice because I got biceps tendonitis and also I remember I used to get this pain in my lower legs too sometimes. The whole thing is just a mental and physical overload. Those are some of the tough parts of camp.

The good part of camp is...hmmm, this one is tougher ha ha! At the time, there is a part of you that thinks that there is nothing good about fall camp, you just want it to be over! But looking back I have some good memories of it. You just come together as a team slowly and at the time you might not realize it, but you do bond together. You make friends with guys that you'll always be friends with. We had a few memorable team activities too. We had a skit night, with hilarious impersonations of the coaches (Vic So'oto did an awesome Coach Anae, and Nate Hutchinson dared to do a great skit of Coach Mendenhall coaching a kids church basketball game). I also remember the last day of camp my senior year. Coach Mendenhall posted the practice schedule on the bullitin board in the locker room like he does everyday. And we got in there and looked at it and just stared in unbelief. It was the longest schedule yet filled with all of the hardest, most physically grueling drills. Everyone was just bummed out. So we get up in the team room ready to get started and Coach gets up there and says that we've had a change in practice schedule and turned the projector on. I remember it said something like: period one: get on the busses, period two: drive to Provo River, period three: float down the river etc. And we just went nuts! I still remember everyone was just jumping around going crazy, so excited to not kill eachother again in practice that day. But we had earned it too, or I don't think coach would have had us take that practice off. We were ready to play. That was definitely one of my favorite memories from BYU camp. Coach got us good.

To get through camp successfully, you have to have a good attitude about all the work and stress. My senior year, I remember trying to take the approach that I would try to make every practice fun. I think I did pretty well. Even though it was hard, I always tried to have a good time. Joking around with teammates, and having great focus during practice. Physically, you have to take extra good care of yourself. I had a routine down, before and after every practice, I'd stretch for 5-10 minutes. I was usually too tired after practice to stand around and stretch so I'd lay down and put my leg up on the wall by a corner and stretch out my hamstrings. All my stretches were lying down stretches. You wouldn't believe how much of difference that made. And that's a tip for everyone out there too, flexibility in my opinion is the most underrated factor in not only being a good athlete, but in overall health and fitness.

Pro Day!

People have been asking me how pro day went at BYU this spring. Well, I didn't get picked up so that tells something ha ha! But I actually did pretty well. All my numbers were as good or better as when I came out my senior year. But it's different when you're coming out of college, those are the players the scouts are most concerned with. I was the leading tight end in the nation statistically coming out after '06. But I've been out for 2 seasons with a serious injury and so I would have had to do extraordinarily well to get more tryouts. If I would have ran a 4.4 with 25 bench press reps I'm sure I would have gotten some looks. But I ran a 4.6 with 19 reps on a bench press. Not bad, but not amazing either. I could say I've always been more of a gamer and I've never been great at the tests but I don't want to make any excuses. I worked hard to get back into shape good enough to get those numbers and I feel good about it. It would have been great to get some looks but I'm fine with how I performed.

The part I was disappointed with was that I didn't get a chance to catch passes for the scouts, which is where I know I'm at my best. It wasn't anyone's fault really, the way it works is the QB and skills players have a script basically of the patterns and throws that they want to show the scouts. Then if the scouts or coaches want to see anything specifically they have you run through that too. So Max Hall and Dennis Pitta and Andrew George had their routes kind of planned out. I offered to run a few if they got tired, but it was their pro day so I didn't want to take away at all from what they were doing. I do wish I would have jumped in and run some receiver routes for them though. So it was too bad I didn't get a chance to showcase my pass catching skills, because I have to say, there's not many people who do that better than me (hopefully that doesn't sound too cocky, but i know what I'm good at, and what I could work on, like blocking ha ha!). Anyway, that's kind of how it went down for me for those who were wondering.

Post Vegas Bowl

It's been awhile since I last posted sorry! It was good to see the Cougars go out with a big win. I wasn't sure how this game would turn out, I definitely thought it would be closer. But now that I think about it, it makes sense how it turned out. I say that because it seemed to me like this team really lived and died with momentum. When they had it, they killed teams and looked really good. When they didn't, it was ugly. So for them to go out and beat a good Oregon State team like that was cool to watch.

I can tell you that winning your bowl game as a senior is a great feeling. It's kind of the end of a chapter in your life and to go out with a win feels awesome. I remember in 2006 when we won big over Oregon I just felt really drained and exhausted, but like I had really accomplished something. It's like you've been working so hard and being so focused on one thing for so long and now you've accomplished it and it's over. There's that quote from Vince Lombardi's famous speech where he says, "I firmly believe that any man's finest hour - his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear - is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause and he's exhausted on the field of battle - victorious." And that's true, that's how I felt and I'm sure that's how these seniors felt last night, it's just an awesome feeling to put a cap on your career with a big win like that. So big congratulations to those seniors, especially Max, Dennis, Andrew, Vic, and Manase, who are all guys that I knew when I played and have really watched the past couple years.

Post game comments, playbook

A lot of people have asked me about what I thought about Max's now infamous comments after the game. I don't think it's that big a deal. I thought it was kind of funny. Yeah he did make a sweeping generalization about the entire university which he realized was wrong, he did issue an explanation/apology. I think it's just one of those things where it came out wrong, he was pretty fired up about about winning the game and wanted to kind of lash out at the people who acted totally and unacceptably horrible to his family last year which is completely understandable to me.

I don't mind some trash talk. I prefer if someone's going to say something like that that they do it before the game, when they do it after their last game their senior year it's kind of like their on safe ground now so they can get away with anything. But I can see how after winning the game too you want to just kind of stick it to your opponent a little more and throw some salt in the wound if you really dislike them. It may not be the classiest thing to do, but sometimes it just comes out because of the nature of competition and the rivalry. And make no mistake, it is a nasty rivalry on and off the field. I can say that when we finished our games against Utah, I really hated a few guys. It's been a couple years and now it's just like, hey, they're just kids like me going out trying to play their best and kick some butt. And so now I don't hold such nasty feelings towards anyone but I really didn't like them back then, and I'm sure they felt the same about me. After the game I was pretty tempted to lash out but I guess I just figured I didn't need to, because felt with how we'd won and how I played pretty much said it all.

So I don't think any less of Max for his comments, I can especially understand with what happened to his family last year why he would want to lash out. Yeah he over generalized but I just think you have to take things like that with a grain of salt.

There was another question about the playbook. I don't think I'm giving away any secrets if I tell you a little about how it works. Basically you have a list of plays that you have ready for basic 1st or 2nd down situations. Then you have groups of plays for specialized situations, 3rd and long, medium, and short, goalline, red zone, backed up, etc. Each week there are some plays that are staples (my favorite was a drag over the MLB to the opposite hash, money almost every time!) and then some that rotate around depending on how we felt they would work based on film of opponents. As the season went on there would be new plays added every now and then too. We'd make certain adjustments at halftime and sometimes even plug in a new play right there. Even on the sideline, you're always adjusting things based on how the defense is reacting to certain looks.

At BYU it was a pretty simple system and process. When I got to Indianapolis it was a big change. It was actually pretty simple overall, but there were just so many little intricacies and adjustments and calls and audibles that it is very tough to learn, and even tougher to actually apply. For example, you call a play in the huddle, you get up to the line, and you have to read how the defense is lined up and that will dictate how you execute your assignment, whether it's the way you run a certain route or the person you're assigned to block. There could be a slight shift in the D's alignment and your assignment changes in an instant. Also if there's an audible you all of a sudden have a completely new read and assignment to make in a split second before the ball is snapped. It can get pretty complicated, but it's like anything else, you just have to practice it so it becomes natural. You don't want to be thinking to hard about what to do, it just has to come naturally and that comes with repetition. Anyway, I know you were asking more specifically about BYU's playbook, but I thought you might find that interesting as well.

Post game

What a finish! I was down on the sideline for the whole game it was pretty cool. I just have to say I'm so pumped for Andrew George! I played with him for 2 years, and he's such a great guy, so unselfish, hardworking, and great attitude. That's definitely a play he'll remember forever. He's lucky he got hoisted on top of everyone's shoulders and not dogpiled though! It was awesome to watch!

Coach Mendenhall used to say to us, we need to make one more play than the other team. And you have to give them credit, they did. Having said that, I can't believe it even came to overtime! The defense really got them the win on this one, they made some big plays which was awesome! But the offense was really atrocious in the fourth quarter. They had three opportunities to make a critical drive and went 3 and out 3 times in a row. I couldn't believe it. They didn't even need to score, but they needed to get at least 2 or 3 first downs. That way they could have run some clock and changed the field position because Utah had a shorter field all 4th quarter. In those critical possessions they looked really bad. The plays were too predictable and they didn't execute them at all. Max didn't have much time to throw and it looked like either no one was open or he didn't have the confidence to make the throw. Which is strange because he usually is on the other end of the spectrum, he will sometimes make throws that are pretty dangerous. So I guess he was being cautious. But it's not all on him, like I said, he didn't have much time, and the receivers needed to do a better job getting open as well.

But like I said, in this rivalry game you're going to have some highs and lows, and as a player you can't get too up or too down with the roller coaster. So they did just enough to win it and come out on top and that's all that matters!

When the game started BYU got out to kind of a slow start and I was just feeling frustrated that they came out so slow! Throughout the season I feel like I've been critical at times of the team and I don't want to be. As the game went on they started making some big plays, which if you've been following my blog I've been harping on this all year, that they've lacked big plays in the big games. It's easy to make big plays against Wyoming, but you've really got to work to make something happen against better teams. It was awesome to see Chambers get that long punt return to set up the first touchdown and also when Andrew Rich got that pick at the end of the half. I was getting pumped up to see them make some plays!

I'm writing this on the fly and I just saw the highlights and Andrew George did get dogpiled first! Ha ha! Also I saw Max talking some trash on Utah! That's awesome I was laughing my head off! Hey there's something to be said for going out on top! As a player, that's what you want. As a fan, you kind of have to live and die by who wins this game each year, but the hard thing is, BYU will win some years, and Utah will win some years ad that's just how it goes. Being a player if you can go out on top then that's something you will always live with and you can't go back and change it. It's a great feeling for me knowing that I definitely got the best of Utah and that will never change. Now these guys can say the same thing and no one can take that away from them.

Anyway, I'm just super pumped that they were able to make some big plays and win a big game! It was awesome to watch and see some of my old teammates go out there and win with such an exciting finish. And again, I'm so happy for Andrew, big congratulations to him! Go BYU!

Final drive 06

So as you would probably guess a lot of people have asked me about the last play and last drive against Utah in 2006. This goes along with what I just wrote about the difference in being a player versus a fan. This is probably going to be a surprising revelation to some people. Because it's probably the opposite of what you would think would be going on in a player's head, or at least in my head.

When Utah scored that last touchdown, I had no idea what would happen, I didn't have any kind of special feeling that we would win the game. In fact, if anything I thought we would probably lose. And this is the weird part, I didn't care about the outcome. Not that I didn't want to win, but as a player like I mentioned, the outcome of the game wasn't what I was worried about. To tell you the truth, when they scored all I thought was, this doesn't look good at all, but let's go out there and see what happens. That's about it. I didn't try to get myself pumped up to do some superhuman thing to win the game. All you can do is do your job right and hope everyone else does theirs'.

I'm sure that's not the attitude that most people would expect, and I even thought myself that maybe I was a little weird for thinking that way. But I was talking to Jake Kuresa earlier today, and I asked him what he felt at that same moment, and he said he felt the exact same way. Just go out there, do your job, and see what happens, but the odds are not looking good.

So we started to move the ball down the field, and I didn't know what would happen. But we made a few plays and got some first downs. We got to a fourth down, and I remember feeling like I was almost on autopilot, I was so detached from my emotions. John found me sitting in a hole on a dig route over the middle to keep the drive alive. I remember not caring any more about catching that ball than I would care about catching a pass on a 2nd and 7 in the 1st quarter against UNLV. Don't misunderstand, I don't mean I didn't want to catch it or do my job right, but I didn't feel any more pressure to catch it than a routine pass. I didn't think, Oh my gosh if I drop this the game is over! I just caught it and ran, I also remember thinking that I couldn't have gotten more yards but one of their guys barely tripped me up or I would have probably got 20 yards.

Only when McKay Jacobson caught the pass at about the ten yard line did I think, Okay we should actually score here and win the game. But at the same time I still didn't feel any pressure. As a fan I would be going nuts, just ask my wife, when I watch a game, in a key moment I sometimes will take a lap around the house because I'm so excited and nervous.

We had a timeout and after we broke the huddle (and you can kind of see this on the replay on the tape) I remember telling John, Hey if you get in trouble just throw it up to me and I'll get it. The last play was trips left with the outside guys doing a crossing post and corner, and the inside guy doing a little swing to open the window for the corner. I was on the right side and they lined up 2 guys over me in case we tried another fade or jump ball to me.

After 2 seconds the play called was over and it was just a free-for-all. Now the rule in a scramble drill is that you follow where the quarterback goes and find an opening. So first he faded to the left so everyone followed. As I got over there I was kind of hidden behind everyone. So John started scrambling back to the right, and so my instinct was to follow because that's how we always practiced it. But as I saw everyone else following him, I thought, well if I stay behind if he sees me he can just chuck it all the way back here because there's no one around. I didn't think he knew I was back there, but he told me after that he did and he was actually trying to draw the defense back to the right. And if you watch him it makes sense because he just turns a hucks it without really seeing me.

What I remember about the ball being in the air was only that at first I misjudged it and thought it would come all the way to me and after a split second I realized it wasn't going to make it to me and I'd have to come up for it. That's all that went through my head.

There are two questions people ask me about that catch. The one I get less often is, what if you slid out of the endzone? I knew where I was at. If I had to come out of the endzone to catch it I would not have slid, I would have reached down to catch it, which is a harder catch but I have no doubt I would have made it. The second question is, what were you thinking while the ball was in the air? and/or were you afraid you were going to drop it? That one's easy. There was no chance in the world I would have dropped it. I wasn't nervous or scared or anything. Dropping it never crossed my mind. The next day we watched the replay of the game at my in-law's house, and only then did it really hit me, wow what if it bounced off my chest or something? I was ten times more nervous watching the replay (even though I knew what was going to happen) than I was actually catching the pass. I hadn't dropped a pass that I should have caught (and by that I mean any pass that I just flat out dropped, not ones where I was heavily defended or didn't have much of a chance on, but I got most of those too!) since the first game of the season. By my count I only had that one drop all year long. It honestly did not even cross my mind for a millisecond that I would drop that pass. I was on autopilot like I said, it was just routine. To tell the truth I would have been more excited watching that game, I would have gone nuts like so many people have told me they did.

Instead after I caught it, I didn't know what to do, so I stood up, raised my arms up, and then everyone dog piled on me and I almost passed out. Somehow I squirmed out of there though. Everything was kind of a blur. Because after exerting yourself in a long, stressful, and physical football game you're just kind of out of it once the game is over. My brother had jumped over the railing and down onto the field to find me because he was so excited, the cops were chasing him and he got to me and they were taking him and he's like, Wait this is my brother! And I was in such a daze I meant to tell them yeah he is, but what I remember is I kind of shrugged my shoulders or something and he took off again. I still feel bad about that! Sorry Andrew! At least he got away!

So that's pretty much how it went down. Probably a lot different than you would think. It's not like the movies at all. In fact I can hardly watch "inspirational" sports movies because they're just so cheesy to me, there's always some big speech or some big motivation and so much emotion involved that people think that's how you win a game, you get all hyped up. But I'll tell you right now, I don't care if someone is playing for some higher reason, when they line up across from me they better be ready for that moment and that play because that's all that matters. And even if they're playing for their mama who flew out special for the game, I don't care. If you're going to guard me you'll need more help than that!

So to me looking back, it was a pretty awesome experience. That's the kind of play you dream about making as a kid, and not very many people get to actually do it. But at the time, it was just another play. And I played just as hard on every other play that whole season as I did on that one. That will always be my most famous play I'm sure, but in my head it's not my favorite play or even the one that I'm the most proud of. But for BYU fans everywhere it was definitely the most memorable, and I'm certainly happy I was able to be a part of it!