TimO wrote:

i know how bad u-dub has been-but it's still very loud to play in, and i hope we have enough fans up there. I know about 8 kids from seattle area here at byu and none of them like football...they are all mostly into b-ball, the east coast, and other crap. I just hope we have enough fans with the high LDS up there to keep the Cougs in gear!
UCLA scares me-they lost a lot of guys especially that muppet Davis-bad man. But they take on a coach who we've beat before-the old u-dub guy. And they want revenge. This is our most important non-conference game by far. it's time to play! I'd like to see us beat the yewts by 40+, but out of teams that are non-conference i want to beat ucla more than anyone...badly

If your looking at coaching hostility, I think you'll find more motivation at the OC position. I don't, however think that Norm Chow will gear-up a huge part of his preseason preparing special tricks to use vs BYU as some conference teams have done (AFA and TCU). I'm more concerned about what their DC will do, seeing as this will be the third time within a year that he gets to prepare for BYU, all vs almost the same offense and players.

More than anything, they want to win and they'll prepare well for it. But they can only go as far their players will take them. I think that maybe more than the loss of starts, talent and experience, the biggest uncertainty for UCLA may be leadership.

Last year, they were a senior dominated team with high expectations before injuries derailed them. This year the heart of their on-field leadership is gone, especially on defense. Their top leaders on the D-line, LBs, and secondary are all graduated, and probably their o-line and receivers as well. Cohesion and effective teamwork may be an issue for them.

Although the returning defensive players will be highly motivated, the offense may still be getting familiar with their new coaches and a new scheme.

MajorCougar wrote:

raidingtombs wrote:

cougarfan144 wrote:

A bright side to facing Locker is that our coaches will have plenty of film to go on and can break down his strengths/weaknesses. If he were to come in and they had nothing to go on, I'd expect more trouble with him.
I'm not discounting his ability or talent but I expect we'll be ready for the challenges he'll present and the defense will be adequately prepped as to how to maintain him in their overall goal of "managing points".

Locker is good but all you have to do is put a man on him. He runs nearly most of the time and when he throws it is usually not a very good throw and is likely not to be caught. The guy is a run first throw maybe type of QB. He has an average arm and poor accuracy but is a great runner. I don't think he looks any farther then his first progression maybe his second if he is given time. New O-line and Jorgensen and Dulan coming in, not to mention Nixon he'll have little time to look past his 1st and he'll run. Personally I think he'll be surprised to find out how fast our LB's are.

Sounds like we just need to play him, like we play Brian Johnson. Force him to beat you with his arm, and not his legs... :)

I wish Locker had BJ's speed. We could just have Rick Wolfley or one of the reserve linemen shadow him.

BYUtx wrote:

MajorCougar wrote:

raidingtombs wrote:

cougarfan144 wrote:

A bright side to facing Locker is that our coaches will have plenty of film to go on and can break down his strengths/weaknesses. If he were to come in and they had nothing to go on, I'd expect more trouble with him.
I'm not discounting his ability or talent but I expect we'll be ready for the challenges he'll present and the defense will be adequately prepped as to how to maintain him in their overall goal of "managing points".

Locker is good but all you have to do is put a man on him. He runs nearly most of the time and when he throws it is usually not a very good throw and is likely not to be caught. The guy is a run first throw maybe type of QB. He has an average arm and poor accuracy but is a great runner. I don't think he looks any farther then his first progression maybe his second if he is given time. New O-line and Jorgensen and Dulan coming in, not to mention Nixon he'll have little time to look past his 1st and he'll run. Personally I think he'll be surprised to find out how fast our LB's are.

Sounds like we just need to play him, like we play Brian Johnson. Force him to beat you with his arm, and not his legs... :)

I wish Locker had BJ's speed. We could just have Rick Wolfley or one of the reserve linemen shadow him.

My fear is that Locker may show considerable improvement as a passer in his second year of D-1 competition. That would make him extremely dangerous.

Of course, maybe he'll be pretty beat up after their season opener against the ducks.

I'm glad we don't open the season with a conference game. That would really suck.

domanater wrote:

UCLAs fate rests on our ability to improve quickly on defense, (the guys like g pittman, howard, bradley, etc. etc.) The beauty is that our dline is very solid (Dulan isn't going on a mission so we're very deep) and Ben Olson is not mobile in the slightest. Jorgenson is going to have a big
day. Bottom line vs UCLA, if we can run the ball against them and force Big Ben into long 3rd downs, I think we'll win by 25. If they can run and we see a lot of 3rd and shorts, Ben gets a little confidence, or Max finds ways to turn the ball over still, it will be tight.

Honestly, our toughest games this year will be Utah, Air Force, and TCU, if we can't beat washington or ucla, we'll probably drop one of those conference roadies too. Going undefeated will be a monumental task (which is why we've only done it once in our history) but we have the horses.

Dominator...will you clarify the Dulan situation? I hadn't heard about his not going on a mission.

Keep in mind that at least 5 PAC 10 Teams were in the top 10 at some time last year and UW played all of them plus a Notre Dame type OOC schedule. The easy games for UW were Boise State and Hawaii at Hawaii. In other words, they had no easy games. They were not great last year, but they were not a bad team. IMHO there are few teams in college football that could have played that schedule and gone over 500. Do not take UW lightly. They have a similar schedule in 2008 and may again struggle to go much over 500, but at home they will be a formidable opponent.

Cougarbib2 wrote:

Keep in mind that at least 5 PAC 10 Teams were in the top 10 at some time last year and UW played all of them plus a Notre Dame type OOC schedule. The easy games for UW were Boise State and Hawaii at Hawaii. In other words, they had no easy games. They were not great last year, but they were not a bad team. IMHO there are few teams in college football that could have played that schedule and gone over 500. Do not take UW lightly. They have a similar schedule in 2008 and may again struggle to go much over 500, but at home they will be a formidable opponent.

This is a great point. UW will not be a pushover (I hope that statement is wrong). I remember USC getting all they could handle from UW team that was supposed to be rotten.