BYU football: Cougars want to improve on miscues
"Far from it. When you consider measuring against our potential and our capability, I don't think we executed, especially offensively, from beginning to end, like we're capable of," he said. "A lot of 'blue zone' opportunities missed. Defensively for three quarters I think they played well.
"Toward the end, through lack of composure, a few missed assignments and missed tackles, I don't think they finished the game extremely well. I thought special teams was solid, other than the missed field goal and the blocked field goal.
"Overall, it was still a significant win in a very unique and difficult environment. But in terms of meeting expectations, our players know that didn't happen."
Quarterback Max Hall, who threw two interceptions against the Aggies, said he's taking the victory in Logan as a learning experience.
"It was a win. We did a lot of good things. There were a couple of decisions I made that can learn from, maybe I wish I could have back.
"This might sound weird, but it felt good to throw a couple of interceptions and go back to the drawing board and bring me down a little bit. The expectations of play around here right now is so high, that sometimes you're going to make mistakes. It's good to learn from those and process those."
As for the 12 penalties for minus-123 yards that BYU committed, Mendenhall said he doesn't see a correlation between penalties and the win-loss ledger, noting that BYU, TCU and Utah are three of the most heavily penalized teams in the league.
"Some of that (being whistled for a lot of penalties) comes with aggressive play. I don't condone it, but I'd rather be pulling our players back rather than having them be too cautious," Mendenhall said.
He added that he wants to see his team play with poise and composure. "We do need to handle adversity, chaos and the mayhem that happens when things don't go just right and play with execution within the whistles rather than lack clean play outside of the whistles. That's what I'm disappointed in."
Hall was flagged for a personal foul penalty after shoving a USU player at the end of a play in retaliation for being shoved at the bottom of a pile. He explained that he probably shouldn't have reacted that way, but said he won't back down when he is pushed around. "Hopefully I won't get any more (personal foul penalties)," Hall said.
Recent comments
I saw Max Hall play in high school.....his tendency to stare down…
az coug | Oct. 9, 2008 at 12:40 a.m.
First, Utah also played USU on the road and beat them by a far more…
Re: Utah??? Weber ST. | Oct. 8, 2008 at 10:53 a.m.
At least we were tested away by a D1 team(USU).
Utah escaped Weber…
Utah??? Weber ST. | Oct. 8, 2008 at 9:58 a.m.
