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During his weekly press conference, BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall looked ahead to Saturday's game at Texas while reflecting on a season-opening win at Ole Miss that presented the "best of both worlds," from a "teachable moment" perspective.
"You get a great victory," said Mendenhall, "and you also know what defeat could have tasted like, because you were behind most of the game. There's the sense of relief that 'I'm glad we won,' but there's a lot we can improve."
You can all of Mendenhall's press conference audio and post-presser interviews with center Terence Brown, linebacker Jordan Pendleton and wide receiver McKay Jacobson, in "Cougar Cuts."
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About the Longhorns, and comparing them to the opponent in Oxford, Mendenhall said UT "is deeper in talent and more athletic than Ole Miss, in our assessment."
Texas has "more diverse schemes, offensively and defensively. We'll see a little bit better player, and we'll also see the next tier just in terms of variety of things to either block or defend. It will be a more difficult test than our first one."
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Mendenhall noted that he had been to Austin once before as a player. On September 26, 1987, Mendenhall and his Oregon State Beavers got waxed 61-16 by the Longhorns in UT's first game after an early season bye. In the game before the bye, on September 12, 1987, visiting BYU topped Texas 22-17.
The coach says playing at Texas will be "a great experience for our players."
"When you consider who are the 'haves' in college football, in terms of the glitter and the budget, etc., you probably think of Texas and Oregon, in terms of the number of resources they have."
"I think it will be fun for our players...after they have heard about all the things Texas has as a program and reputation and tradition, to see that and then measure themselves against the players and see if those things match."
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More Mendenhall--
On Texas' trick play arsenal under new co-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin, formerly the OC at Boise State:
"In going through the film, there are multiple plays that are very unique and different. In talking with (TCU head coach) Gary Patterson, the last two years before they played Boise, they had prepared for trick plays in each game, and the ones they saw in the game were not the ones they had prepared for. At one point, they had a file of 50 trick plays--none of which were the same ones."
"To predict which ones we're going to see and when, hard to say."
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On preparing his team for what will likely be the largest stadium crowd ever to see a BYU football game:
"Besides warmups, and maybe when you come out of the tunnel, that's usually when you notice the crowd. The rest of it...not much difference between 60 (thousand fans) and 80 or 100."
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On Texas' run game:
"Not only can they run the ball between the tackles and have a nice plan that way, but they really have a nice plan to try and run around you. Most of their big play yardage (in a 34-9 win over Rice) came running around the opponent, not through the opponent."
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On the play of his secondary at Ole Miss and moving forward:
"I thought the strength was they tackled well and I think they concentrated well in terms of play-action pass. I'd like to to see more balls knocked down and a few more incompletions, just based on coverage."
"In summary, pleased with the tackling, and the coverage part is still a work in progress, I would say."
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