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Utah (Weber State), San Diego State (Idaho) and New Mexico (New Mexico State) picked up wins for the league on Saturday, with TCU (Oklahoma), Colorado State (Cal), Wyoming (Bowling Green) and UNLV (UNR) contributing the losses in a 3-4 performance.
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BYU and Utah are left to fight for the BCS spot that would go to either the 12-0 Cougars or the 12-0 Utes. As for one-loss teams with an eventual shot at cracking the BCS Top 12 or Top 16, it's way too early to assess those chances. For the time being, it's all eyes on November 22nd--a de facto BCS play-in game--until either BYU or Utah lose a game.
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The two late games I was tracking last night turned out the way they were headed, with UNR beating UNLV and Stanford beating Washington. The Huskies lost the game and QB Jake Locker for up to 6 weeks with a broken thumb. Plus, they lost at least 3 other players to injury. I would like to get the tally of UW players forced to the sidelines for extended periods of time this season, because it seems like they just get beat up every single week. Bottom line: BYU's win at UW won't carry much if any weight this season.
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BYU could end up having faced at least three coaches who will lose their jobs after this season: Ty Willingham, Joe Glenn and Chuck Long. There's still time for Mike Sanford's season to go south at UNLV, so he's on the short list of "hot seat" coaches, too.
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Northern Iowa lost to Southern Illinois yesterday, so BYU has not played a team with a winning record to this point in the season. Including UNI, BYU's combined opponent record is 5-12--counting FBS teams only, the combined opponent record is 3-10. Of those three opponents wins, only two are against FBS teams (Ohio--courtesy of Wyoming, and Tennessee--courtesy of UCLA). When it comes to the BCS Standings, BYU will be depending on the respect of the human pollsters, because right now, BYU's strength of schedule computer numbers are ugly. Remember, though, that Hawaii's computer numbers were bad on a weekly basis last year, and the poll results pulled UH through. BYU has more respect than Hawaii, but for the time being, the hard drives will probably be hard on the Cougars.
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