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PROVO — It was a short week, injuries ran rampant, the game was on the East Coast, Jordan Leslie was held; if BYU wants excuses for losing to UCF, it has them. However, in the end, the Cougars had a 14-point lead in the second half. The question is who are these Cougars? Now that the ranking and national spotlight are gone, is BYU focused on settling for progress or winning? The tone during media interviews on Monday morning was somber optimism. Head coach Bronco Mendenhall pointed out what he saw from his team in BYU's second consecutive loss.
“Our team tried really hard,” Mendenhall said. “They played with a lot of grit and determination and heart. Christian Stewart really came along nicely, so a lot of positives, I think.”
Mendenhall said he was encouraged with young players and the better play of the defense, but he is disappointed the team didn’t win.
New quarterback Christian Stewart looked at his first start as a learning experience and said he felt great progress over the course of the game, but he knows it wasn’t good enough.
“Definitely guys are disappointed with the outcome,” Stewart said. “We didn’t travel all the way to Florida to get better as a team; we traveled there to win the game. We didn’t accomplish that, and guys were definitely discouraged by that, but at the same time there are a lot of things to be positive about.”
BYU is scrambling with adjustments to the injuries and adversity. There is one primary issue that changed the mindset from playoff to progress, and there is no other way to say it: This team really misses Taysom Hill. They seem comfortable saying that they relied on Hill heavily. Devin Mahina got his first real chance on Thursday night and capitalized with two touchdowns. He was excited about the opportunity and embracing the responsibility.
“We lost our best player,” Mahina said. “For this team to do well, all of us, we’re gonna have to step up. I personally took that upon my shoulders, I need to do more not only with blocking but with the pass game too.”
Another player who stepped up Thursday in his first start was freshman Fred Warner. He was asked what is holding the team back.
“Definitely losing Taysom was a big hurt for us, ’cause he was one of our main guys who would get points on the board.”
With Hill gone, all of the skill players around Stewart will have to step up for this team to win, and that may mean the players will be better weapons for Hill next year. But Hill is not the only injured player. Jordan Johnson broke his arm, and Craig Bills sat the majority of the game with a concussion. The recurring issue has been sprained ankles, with 10 plus on the season. Mendenhall said the trainers are looking for commonalities, but he pointed out most of the injuries are happening in games and not in the open field. He was asked about an injury report and said nothing is clear, but it's bad.
“It’s pretty long,” Mendenhall said. “So I’m not sure who’s in, who's out, and quite frankly we’re just going with whoever can play and not making a big deal about it.”
Running back Algernon Brown missed three weeks with a sprained ankle. He chalked it up to bad luck and said the team just needs to stay healthy. At this point, it is a running joke.
“We joke around, we’re just an ankle crew in the training room all the time,” Brown said.
BYU met and lifted on both Saturday and Monday and will get back to practice on Tuesday to prepare for Nevada. A week may give it time to heal and look forward to wins and past the pains.
To hear more of what Mendenhall and players had to say, check out full interviews in Cougar Cuts above. Mitchell Marshall is a KSL Sports Radio intern and broadcast journalism student at Brigham Young University, where he anchors and produces sports. Find him @mitchellive on Twitter.
