BYU routs Wyoming

Until the past couple of weeks there had been talk that BYU may have been overrated heading into the season and didn’t deserve a top 20 ranking.  They opened the season by handling an overmatched Northern Iowa team at home, and then needed a controversial penalty call and a blocked PAT to escape from Washington with a 28-27 win.

The talk of being “overrated” has ceased in the past couple of weeks, and with good reason.  On 9/13 BYU beat UCLA 59-0 to give the Bruins one of their worst losses in team history.  They followed that up yesterday with a 44-0 beatdown of Wyoming.  That translates to a 103-0 combined score against their last two opponents.  BYU in the process won their 14th straight game overall and 17 straight Mountain West Conference games, which is a all time best for the conference.

The margin of victory could have been even greater had coach Bronco Mendenhall not rested QB Max Hall for the 4th quarter with BYU up 41-0.  Hall had another excellent week, passing for 189 yards and 3 TD passes with no interceptions.  He’s starting to look more and more like the prototypical efficient, mistake free BYU QB with every passing week.   From a yardage standpoint, it was a bit of a disappointment as it was only the 2nd time in 17 career starts that he’s been held under 200 yards.  That was more due to circumstance than to any substandard play on his part, as Wyoming kept giving the Cougars the ball in great field position via six turnovers.

BYU also won their 15th consecutive game at home.  Mendenhall was hired to resurrect the program from the disastrous tenure of Gary Crowton and to bring the swagger back to BYU football.  Part of this task was to restore Cougar Stadium in Provo to their historical stature as one of the most fearsome home venues in college football.  That mission appears to be on the verge of being accomplished.

For Wyoming, their struggles against one of the Mountain West Conference’s traditional powerhouses continued.  The Cowboys have lost eight of their last nine meetings with BYU overall, and have lost eight straight in Utah.  The Cougars travel 120 or so miles up I-15 next week to Logan, Utah for a game against Utah State before returning home on 10/11 for another MWC game against New Mexico.  They’ll face one of their bigger tests of the regular season on 10/16 when they travel to Ft. Worth, Texas for a game against #24 TCU.