Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Week 2 of the college football polls shows BYU 29th in the USA Today Coach's rankings, and 34th in the AP poll. BYU is just behind Michigan (27th and 33rd) in both instances.
*******
The UCLA Bruins are 14th and 13th, respectively--up from 17th and 14th. TCU is 19th in both polls (up 3 spots in both).
*******
In rankings that will become more important if BYU wins at the Rose Bowl, Boise State and Hawai'i are 20th and 22nd, with their rankings flip-flopping in the two surveys.
*******
While Boise State visits unranked Washington this week, BYU would conceivably get more of a boost with a win at a top 15 UCLA squad. It is in BYU's best interest to get ahead of both Boise State and Hawai'i and remain there all season, and the schedule (at UCLA, @ Tulsa, v. TCU) should give BYU just enough oomph to trump the Broncos, should schedule strength come into play.
*******
Again, all of the aforementioned speculation is contingent on a win at UCLA--testament to the "all or nothing" importance of games like this Saturday's for teams outside of the BCS.
*******
It would also help the Cougars if TCU were to beat a top 10 team at Texas on Saturday (or at least take the Longhorns to the wire). Yes, with a win, the Frogs would surge up the polls, but BYU would need to beat TCU in November anyway, and the higher the Frogs are ranked, the better it would be for the Cougars. Indeed, if BYU were to win at UCLA, then remain unbeaten (including a win over a ranked TCU team), the Cougars would almost certainly be the highest-ranked non-BCS team nationally.
*******
Broadcast News:
apologies for the technical delay, but the audio archive from the Arizona game is now up and running at ksl.com (as many of you have now discovered). The problems of this past weekend are not expected to resurface, and kudos to our web gurus at KSL for fixing the bug and upgrading the equipment to avoid further hiccups.
*******
Broadcast News II:
join Marc Lyons and me tomorrow night for the Bronco Mendenhall Show--this week coming your way from Ken Garff Honda of Orem (115 East University Parkway). I'll be there from 5:00-8:00pm, while Coach Mendenhall and Marc will show up for the show from 7:00-8:00pm. We'll be taking calls, e-mails, and even have the ability to take questions from fans in the audience. Hope to see a bunch of you out there!
*******
Fast Facts:
-BYU was last 2-0 in 2002, opening with home wins over Syracuse and Hawai'i. Then came the "getaway special" at Nevada, and the Cougars' downward spiral was underway.
-BYU has lost 6 in a row to UCLA--winning the series opener at the Rose Bowl in 1983 (behind Steve Young), then losing every meeting since. The teams last met in 1995 (23-9 loss in Provo).
*******
