Tulsa no non-conference pushover for BYU

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By DOUG ALDEN AP Sports Writer

PROVO, Utah (AP) -- Scheduling Tulsa may have seemed like a good idea for Brigham Young a few years ago when the Golden Hurricane were struggling.

Now, Tulsa is hardly a non-conference gimme for the Cougars as they try to avoid opening the season 0-2 for the first time in 11 years. Tulsa (1-0) is the defending Conference USA champion, coming off a nine-win season and opening this year with a 45-7 win over Stephen F. Austin -- a Division I-AA school.

"We really haven't used that as the gauge. What we've used is the nine wins from the previous year," BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said. "I see no drop-off. I see the same volatility in terms of 33 points a game and (converting) 49 percent on third down -- all the same things they did last season."

The Golden Hurricane are in their fourth season under coach Steve Kragthorpe, the son of former BYU assistant Dave Kragthorpe. Mendenhall and Steve Kragthorpe were assistants together at Oregon State and Northern Arizona.

So both have a pretty good idea of what they're facing Saturday.

"They know what to expect. They've been in a lot of very big games before," Kragthorpe said.

The Cougars opened the season last weekend with a 13-10 loss to Arizona on a 48-yard field goal in the final seconds. BYU's solid defensive performance wasn't enough to overcome 10 penalties and a paltry rushing performance.

BYU has always been a passing team, but a total of 24 yards on 24 carries -- only three of which were sacks -- is a pretty low average.

"It hurts when you don't get very many yards rushing, because that's on us," offensive lineman Eddie Keele said. "Even when we're not doing a good job, we still want to run the ball because we feel like we will get in our groove and we'll start beating people up."

BYU's passing game appeared to be OK in the season opener. John Beck was 28-for-37 for 289 yards and a touchdown, but it was the only TD of the game for the Cougars.

BYU opened last season in a similarly frustrating fashion, rushing for eight yards and passing for 330 in a 20-3 loss to Boston College.

"I think that was kind of similar to what happened last Saturday. We moved the ball great," linebacker Bryan Kehl said. "We just would stall drives with penalties and different things. We just couldn't quite get into the end zone enough."

The Cougars regrouped from the Boston College loss last year by beating up on Division I-AA Eastern Illinois 45-10 for Mendenhall's first win as coach. But the Golden Hurricane will be a much more difficult opponent, even if Tulsa is still fighting for some recognition.

"The hardest person for me to go against is not the athletic one, but the one that's constantly going -- the one that's constantly going hard," Keele said. "I think Tulsa is probably one of those teams that plays at a high level of effort."

BYU, which is 5-0 all-time against Tulsa, hasn't opened a season 0-2 since 1995.

This is the first meeting of the former Western Athletic Conference teams since 1997.

After spending 10 years growing up in Provo, joining his dad around the Cougars and former coach LaVell Edwards, Kragthorpe is familiar with BYU's strong tradition.

He knows how badly Mendenhall wants to restore the program's reputation, but in between the pregame and postgame handshakes, he won't be feeling nostalgic.

"I've been to 55, 60 games in that stadium and then probably close to 100 games overall that I saw BYU play," Kragthorpe said. "But once you go out there, it doesn't matter. You just play the game."