ShareThisPROVO, Utah - Given the difficulty of their schedule the first half of the 2011 football season, especially the first three games, the independent BYU Cougars are relatively happy with being 4-2 heading into the second half of regular-season play, which begins Saturday with a difficult road test at the Pac-12's Oregon State.
But they are far from satisfied with the way they have played. They have eked out three of the wins, were blown out at home by their fiercest rival, and failed to defeat a team they were favored to beat by two touchdowns.
After knocking off San Jose State by just 29-16 last Saturday, coach Bronco Mendenhall acknowledged at the midway point of the season that his Cougars are probably not as good as he thought they would be.
"I think that in looking at our talent, and in looking at the way fall camp went, I thought we were farther ahead than what we were. Still, how we played earlier in the season, and that we are 4-2 at this point, you know, short of being 6-0 or 5-1, I thought that we would just be executing on both sides at a higher level," Mendenhall said.
In other words, talk of playing for a national championship, as Mendenhall said during July's football media day was the program's ultimate goal, is dead in Provo, maybe for several years with the realization that star quarterback Jake Heaps, replaced by junior Riley Nelson as the starter, might not be the answer.
Statistics show that BYU is at best an average football team right now, the defense better than decent and the offense lacking. Against teams that are a combined 15-16 so far, the Cougars are 101st in the country in scoring offense, and 49th in scoring defense. They are 93rd in total offense and 43rd in total defense.
"Still growing, still maturing, and a work in progress would be the exact way I would put it," Mendenhall said. "We just know there's more (potential) in there that we can get."
There are only a couple of measuring sticks left for the Cougars, however: Saturday against Oregon State, Oct. 28 against TCU and maybe Dec. 3 at Hawaii, given how jacked up the Warriors will be to play their old nemesis at home.
"I definitely feel like we are progressing and improving in a lot of different ways," senior receiver McKay Jacobson said. "I think our overall confidence is building. Last game, we did a lot of good things. And I think really we just got to build on the momentum, and I think just stay in the moment, stay in the week, and just not look ahead and focus on our game on Saturday."
With no conference championship to play for this year, and knowing that they are locked into the Armed Forces Bowl on Dec. 30 against a Conference USA opponent, the Cougars insist they will stay interested.
Asked what the goals are for the second half of the season, cornerback Preston Hadley said they haven't changed.
"To go undefeated from here on out, to be dominant on both sides of the football, and really just play well and keeping this winning streak going," he said.
Linebacker Jameson Frazier said the first step is putting together a complete game.
"I still think the main focus for us is being able to put it together for four quarters, just being able to play our football, play BYU football from the first half to the second half," he said.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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