Cougar Tracks: BYU Football with Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall, Week 10


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After a week off Bronco Mendenhall rejoined Greg Wrubell and Marc Lyons on Wednesday night for KSL Newsradio's live broadcast of "BYU Football with Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall" from LaVell Edwards Stadium.

During the bye week the players had extra downtime and a chance to get caught up on schoolwork as they put in a couple days of mandatory lifting and three days of practice. Coaches and the athletic department worked on recruiting and scheduling, all of which was discussed Wednesday.

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As far as health is concerned the Cougars look the same heading into their tenth game of the season as they did two weeks ago in Atlanta. The Idaho Vandals will be facing a depleted offensive line that BYU has become accustomed to playing with.

The O-line has been losing starters since fall camp, and will still be without senior starting center Braden Hansen (adductor). Brock Stringham will also remain out due to complications from tonsillitis.

As Mendenhall looks ahead to replenish his O-line for next season he noted that just about all of the freshman who redshirted this season will be serving missions. That being the case, BYU is in the junior college market for linemen.

"Our standards don't change just because they're a junior college player... in terms of the ecclesiastical endorsement, in terms of the character component, in terms of the spirituality and then in terms of how good a football player," Mendenhall said. "Sometimes they add a sense of urgency to the program which is nice because they don't have much time."

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After BYU had such a strong defensive game against Georgia Tech, Mendenhall said other coaches called with questions about strategy and schemes. In his eight years as head coach Mendenhall has learned information moves too fast through college football to be sharing competitive advantages.

"The minute the Georgia Tech game was over, it started," Mendenhall said. "The less we share - the better."

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Mendenhall broke from traditional "coach-speak" for a minute when he talked about games beyond Idaho. He mentioned that if BYU runs the table and wins a bowl game they will finish 9-4 which not many teams do - but he won't be judging success based on the team's record.

"The record isn't what I'll gauge the success by, its how close and how hard our guys are playing within what I think they're capable of," he said. "I saw strides towards that last week, I saw strides towards that the week before against Notre Dame so, I think we're gaining momentum."

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The big news from the program this week came when the school announced that BYU will play at Michigan in 2015 and meet Virginia in 2013 and 2014. The 2013 schedule still has a couple of empty slots, and Mendenhall said with five home games and six home games already set, BYU may try to add two more home dates to get to a 13-game regular season--allowed since the Cougars play at Hawaii next season.

Mendenhall said "yeah, maybe" when asked if BYU might play 13 regular season games in 2013. "Working on it right now to see if it's a possibility...it would have to be the right opponent."

"We'll work hard to be seven (home games) and six (road games) if we go 13...I think there's at least one (potential new) game that is intriguing to me. Others are intriguing, but they'll have to come to us first...I'm not interested in going six games home and seven on the road."

Mendenhall has in the past not necessarily been in favor of scheduling 13 regular-season contests, but he says "my philosophy once we hit independence has changed...I'm pretty much willing to go anywhere and play anybody, in front of the biggest crowds, to improve our program. Hopefully, enough space in between the (bigger) games that we have some balance...I'm looking forward to whomever wants to play us."

Don't count any Pac-12 teams in that group. The Virginia series came after Washington State asked out of a planned 2013 home meeting with BYU, and Mendenhall said "our door's not being pounded down by Pac-12 schools that want to play so we're taking those (teams) that do want to play."

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Skyler Hardman Sports Intern/Cougar Tracks contributor, and Greg Wrubell

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