Five Best and Worst Things About BYU's Season

Let’s get the bad news out of the way...

FIVE WORST THINGS

5. Not Dominating Washington.

At the beginning of the year, perception can be detrimental to the psyche of the team.  We went into that game thinking Washington was supposed to be a good team.  They had a lot of hype around them this year coming in.  We were content with playing them tough and being ahead by a score.  Hindsight is 20/20, right?

Reference No. 2 for this, but it would have been great to come out and stomp them like we did UCLA and Wyoming.

4. Collie not going to New York.

It was just announced that Collie is not one of the three finalists for the Biletnikoff Award.  He has dominated every opponent and posted 10 consecutive 100+ receiving games and is still not thought of as a top three receiver in the country.  For more on this, see my article, “Someone Stole Austin Collie’s Postseason Award.”

3. Dave Nixon Being Hurt.

This did not “hurt” the team, but I was just disappointed that I could not watch Dave at full strength one last time.  I felt bad for him too because I know what it’s like to play your senior year not at 100 percent.  Dave is an amazing athlete and an outstanding football player.  His shoes will be hard to fill at BYU.

2. Inconsistent.

We never really played consistently on both sides of the ball all year.  One thing about the '06 and '07 teams that made them great was that aside from one game on O and one game on D, you always knew what you were going to get from both sides of the ball.  For some reason that was not there this year.

That being said, I almost give them more credit for putting up 10 wins when they were not sure what was going to happen.  I got the feeling the team waited until the second quarter to decide what kind of game it was going to be. 

1. No Conference Championship.

More than anything, that had to be the No. 1 Goal this year. Contrary to popular belief, I think the MWC was the strongest it has been in a while this year. We had four great teams at the top, and the middle teams (UNLV, UNM, CSU) were better than the also-rans the last couple years. Every conference has its SDSU and Wyoming—you can’t change that.

What makes this go from disappointing to No. 1 Worst is that in the two biggest games of the year, we just flat-out fell on our face. We were never in the TCU game, and at Utah, well, enough said.

FIVE BEST THINGS

5. Harvey Unga.

Another 1,000-yard season for Unga.  Harvey continues to be the workhorse on the offense.  I hope he comes back next year healthy and in even better shape. 

4. Fourth Straight Bowl Game.

This will get even better when we win our third straight.  This is a great game to reward our seniors and prepare the underclassmen for next year.  How we play this game will determine what opportunities for greatness we will have next year.

3. Speaking of Hype...

This year there was and continues to be a lot of attention on our conference.  As we continue to get better and stronger as a conference, we will help open doors to great things in the future.

In ‘06 we went to Vegas 10-2 and ranked No. 21, and last year we were 10-2 and ranked No. 19.  This year we are 10-2 and ranked No. 18.  It takes a lot to move up a notch, and we are moving.  This sets the stage even better for next year with a win.

2. Austin Collie and Dennis Pitta.

Both of these guys spent their fair share of time at the top of the country, and Collie had a career season.  He should be in New York making one more reception at the end of the year, but we all know he was the best out there.

1. Another Undefeated Season at LES!

We are second in the country in consecutive home wins.  LES is becoming a tougher place to play, and we are taking care of business at home.  More than anything else I want this to get even better.  I want to walk out of that stadium with a headache every home game because of how loud it was.

By Markell Staffieri