BYU defense alone won't win games on 2017 schedule

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LOGAN — Fred Warner followed the BYU football media relations staff out of the locker room in the northwest corner of Maverik Stadium with a stern look on his face.

A week after calling a players-only meeting to address concerns and air grievances, the 6-foot-4 senior from San Marcos, California, had just put in a career night: eight tackles, a career-best three tackles for loss, and a sack in an in-state rivalry matchup against Utah State.

And yet, it wasn’t enough.

So here he was addressing the media after another loss, a team captain and defensive leader trying to explain a fourth-straight defeat upon the opening of his final season of eligibility with the Cougars.

Warner wears his heart on his sleeve. His passion for football and BYU is evident, both on the field and off it. It’s one thing that draws his teammates to him, that prompted younger brother Troy to spurn offers from Southern California and other Power 5 programs and unite as “the Warner Brothers” in Provo.

It prompted his teammates to name him a team captain in a landslide vote prior to the season.

But after the Cougars’ 40-24 loss to Utah State in his final appearance of the Old Wagon Wheel rivalry, Warner’s emotions bubbled to the surface.

When one reporter asked him to explain the mood of the locker room following BYU’s 1-4 start, he took a deep breath, sighed and fought back tears.

“I mean, it sucks,” Warner said, his voice trembling. “You just lost a game, so … it sucks.”

Utah State linebacker Suli Tamaivena (42) tackles Brigham Young running back Austin Kafentzis (2) as USU goes on to defeat BYU 40-24 at Maverik Stadium in Logan Utah on Friday, Sept. 29, 2017. (Photo: Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

Warner should’ve been celebrating. His play through five games of the 2017 season has been astonishing; 41 tackles and six tackles for loss. An 8-yard sack against Aggie senior quarterback Kent Myers, the first of his season and sixth of his career.

Warner even has two pass breakups and a fumble recovery as he tries to show NFL teams that he will be a worthy addition to their roster in 2018.

But all he could think about was the Cougars’ 1-4 start.

“We’ve obviously got to do better,” Warner said. “We’ll use this week of practice, and create more opportunities for the offense.”

And that was it. Back to the drawing board. A defense that had nine tackles for loss and held Utah State’s offense out of the end zone on all but three drives needed to do better.

Even though the Cougars scored a season-high 24 points and outgained the Aggies with 396 yards to 288 — including a career-best 102 rushing yards by freshman Ula Toluta’u — Warner’s senior side lost by 16 points to their in-state foe from the Cache Valley.

“We made way too many mistakes, way too many errors,” BYU coach Kalani Sitake said. “We saw some positive things, but there were a lot of mistakes and a lot of negative things to overcome the positives.

“I was pleased with the effort … but we need to find ways to win games, and that is where we’re going to go back to work.”

Among those errors: turnovers. Utah State forced seven of them, converting them into 26 points. The Cougars had just one — Micah Hannemann’s 46-yard pick-six that spurred a 21-0 run and gave BYU a 21-7 lead in the second quarter.

“It’s embarrassing how many turnovers we are having out there, but it’s on everyone,” said wide receiver Beau Tanner, who had a 40-yard TD grab that made SportsCenter’s top 10 Friday night. “We’re going to fix it. All we can do is go back to work.”

There were reasons for errors, too, if not excuses. The Cougars were down to their third-string quarterback, thrusting Koy Detmer Jr. into his first live game action in two years after Beau Hoge woozily walked into the locker room midway through the second quarter.

Starting linebacker Butch Pau’u — one of Warner’s co-captains — left the game in the first quarter with an undisclosed injury, and did not return. Injuries have decimated the BYU roster all season, including starting quarterback Tanner Mangum after the third game of the season and presumed starting tight end Moroni Laulu-Pututau before the end of fall camp.

“That’s my brother,” Warner said of Pau’u. “That’s a leader on the team, a stout run stopper, and he’s very instinctive. It hurts, but we’ve got to have a guy who is next man up. We’ve got to make things happen.”

But more than the physical injuries were the emotional injuries instilled on a BYU team that took a 48-35-3 all-time series lead into the matchup. The Cougars had only lost twice to USU since 2010, three times since 1993, and five times since 1978.

But after the emotional win, a rush of USU students swarming Merlin Olsen Field in their “whiteout” apparel, and a mass of exuberant photos taken with the Wagon Wheel, several Aggie players were shouting “not little brother anymore” as the Cougars sadly pulled themselves into the visiting locker room.

BYU returns home Friday night to an even tougher Mountain West team — Boise State, which has begun to build up a regional rivalry since the teams first met in 2003.

The Broncos are 2-2 with losses to Washington State and Virginia, but a bye week ahead of next Friday’s non-conference finale. Following that are back-to-back road trips to Mississippi State and East Carolina.

Without changes, the Cougars could find themselves in a 1-5 hole as the season begins to snowball into a lost cause.

“It’s not going to snowball,” Sitake said. “We have great leaders on this team, and we know exactly what the issues are. We just have to correct them.

“I love the way these guys competed. They hurt right now, and it’s supposed to hurt. But we’ll build off this, and find a way to respond and make sure we are ready for next week.”