The NBA is back

Just an amazing video.

Basketball is back! Weekly thoughts on the season to follow.

For now, here are some abbreviated random impressions after two days.

1. The Lakers are done for this season. This predictably makes me happy.

2. The Heat look pretty darn good.

3. I know Rose looks really good, but I can't forget LeBron absolutely shutting him down in the playoffs last summer. And if the Bulls are counting on Boozer to be an integral part in their success, they have another thing coming.

4. Jimmer playing well for the Kings. Hitting more shots than he's missing, dialing in from long range, making some nice passes, etc. He'll stick around.

5. The Celtics are old.

6. If I'm Orlando, I trade Dwight for a collection of good players. This seems to have paid off for Denver, who look great in the aftermath of the Melo trade to the Knicks.

7. Lob City is gonna be fun. Chris Paul tossing it up to two of the most talented dunkers in the league night after night is fantastic.

8. Finally, the Jazz will be good, not great. Looking forward to seeing Favors and Enes and Hayward develop, while hoping Miles and Harris can hold it down.

Good to have the NBA back. The lockout wasn't positive for anyone.

December thoughts

1. Woo the NBA is back! Can't wait for opening day on Christmas, and anticipate the wife will get mad at me for watching so much basketball.

2. BYU lost to TCU, beat Hawaii and are on their way to the Armed Forces Bowl to play the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes later this month. BYU could very well win 10 games this season to add to the list of mediocre seasons that seem great because the team had double-digit wins. Blegh.

3. Jake Heaps is transferring from BYU after it became apparent Riley Nelson will start next season. In my opinion, BYU chose to win now against bad/middling opponents while having no chance against great football teams. Dealing with the growing pains/mental issues of someone with the tools to make all the throws necessary is too hard, too time consuming, too frustrating.

I hope I'm wrong about Nelson, I really do. He looked pretty good against Hawaii, and that play where he ducked the pressure and threw a perfect pass to Hoffman for a touchdown in the third quarter was a thing of beauty. I'm just not convinced he can do it against Boise State in Boise, or Notre Dame in Indiana, or Utah at Rice-Eccles or Georgia Tech in Georgia (all games BYU has in 2012).

But hey, Riley will look great against Washington State, Weber State, Idaho and St. Winifred's School for the Blind in Central Texas. And BYU will get 8-9 wins, all will be well in Zion, hooray.

Then Nelson graduates and BYU is stuck with a starting QB with little to no experience for the 2013 season.

In short, I think it was a bad idea for Heaps to transfer, and I think it was a bad idea for BYU to choose Nelson over him.

4. David Stern blocking the Chris Paul-to-the-Lakers trade is annoying and seems unnecessary. If the Lakers think they can get it done with an aging Kobe and breaking-down Paul, minus Gasol and Odom, so be it. There's no way they were getting a Bynum-for-Dwight Howard trade, so the dream of Kobe/Paul/Howard was never coming true. If I'm Orlando, I look for another superstar trade chip to get in exchange for Dwight, even if it's not a center.

Football in November

Image from www.bloodrunsblue.com

BYU is down four to Utah State with under two minutes to go, backed up nearly to their own endzone. Jake Heaps has struggled mightily against the Aggies tonight, leading to Bronco and Doman to decide to bench Heaps and bring in Riley Nelson to play against his old team.

Riley manages to bring the Cougars 99 yards for the game-winning touchdown, bedlam ensues, and my brother Seth and I look at each other with worried looks on our faces.

We knew one thing: Nelson is fool's gold.

Good enough to beat bad teams, will never, ever be the reason BYU beat a great team, or even a very good team. His throwing ability has improved this season from last, but he still has low arm strength and extremely questionable decision-making skills.

Heaps has not been much better this season, and definitely deserved to be benched. But for the long term, Heaps is the answer.

As evidenced last week, Lark is not going to take this team anywhere, and if he gets playing time over Munns, Munns has got to be even worse.

What a bad quarterback situation we have in 2011.

Then Riley broke a rib against the mighty Vandals and it looks like it's Heaps' show the rest of the way. He looked fine against Idaho, but let's be honest; it's Idaho.

Tonight's game against New Mexico State is actually a bit intriguing. This may be BYU's closest match in an opponent since that Aggie game in September. While these Aggies are only 4-6, they can put up points. They dropped 28 on Minnesota (in a win), 42 on New Mexico and 48 on Fresno State. While none of those may be good teams, it still shows these guys can get the ball in the endzone, and seem to be improving over time.

New Mexico State seems like a passing team, with 23 of their touchdowns coming through the air, but they can also run, with 14 of their scores coming on the ground. I worry most about BYU's pass defense, and firmly believe that if I were an opposing offensive coordinator with a quarterback worth a darn I'd pass 95% of the time against this Cougar team. Idaho, unfortunately, does not have a quarterback worth a darn, and you saw the results.

So on a snowy night in Provo, it's going to come down to whether or not the Aggies can pass well enough to score versus BYU, and whether Heaps can overcome his mental issues.

In trying to think of a prediction for this game, I realized I'm honestly unsure of what to expect, which is kind of nice after a few weeks of pre-determined outcomes.

Go Cougars!

Friday night again

www.sbnation.com

Utah State at BYU! 6:00 p.m. at LaVell Edwards Stadium! Be there!

A grudge match of epic proportions. Utah state beat BYU down handily last year, 31-16,  and it really wasn't even that close. They were up 24-3 at the half and shut the offense down, letting their running backs run the clock out, and they ended up averaging 4.1 yards a carry as a team for the game. 

In other words, BYU was outclassed big time. 

I'd like to say I expect the Cougars to destroy the Aggies, but the odds of that are bad. Utah State is averaging 42 point a game, and while a lot of those came against a bad Weber State team and a really bad Colorado State team, it still shows these guys can move the ball. Quarterback Chuckie Keaton is averaging 4.3 yards a carry and completing 67% of his passes. Running back Robert Turbin is getting 5.7 yards a pop and running for 121 yards a game.

In short, the defense will be tested this week. 

The Aggie defense, on the other hand, is not as impressive. Giving up 34 points to the Rams? Ouch. Here's hoping Heaps and company can get on track for the first time this season. Might we see THREE offensive touchdowns tonight? We can only hope.

I expect another exciting game thanks to a poor offensive showing, culminating in a closer-than-we'd-like win over the Aggies, 24-21. 

Finally, I have decided to award the Amazon.com gift card to Steven Johnson, who was the only person to predict Utah would beat BYU in the comments of the original post. The card is on its way, Steven, and I hope it will bring you joy as you think about how you picked against your beloved team.

Go Cougars!

Bad offense = fun?

Photo: Cool slideshow at byu.edu


The Friday night home game against the UCF Knights turned out to be a pretty good one. After the Knights steamrolled BYU's defense on their first drive, I was worried this would be a rout, but then the defense showed up, and despite a few miscues, played pretty well the rest of the night.

Thank goodness for Hoffman's returned kickoff for a touchdown, or this game could have turned out very differently, and Heaps' bad performance would have gotten a lot more scrutiny.

But here's the deal: Heaps plays better, BYU wins 40-17, and I'm yawning in the fourth quarter.

As it was, it was pretty much down to the wire, as UCF had the ball with over a minute to go with the chance to tie it. My brother Josh mentioned it was an exciting game more than once.

So maybe this year won't be a season of a few tough games and mostly cupcakes. I expect the game against Utah State this Friday to be a tough win, if not an outright loss, and who knows if Jake's errant passes will keep Idaho State, San Jose State and Idaho (yes, BYU plays both bad Idaho teams) in the game longer than they should be?

The home schedule may turn out to be far better than everyone expected when it was announced.

Other random thoughts from Friday:

1. Kyle Van Noy is a beast. The play where he ran down UCF's quarterback from about 15 yards out was a thing of beauty. You can tell the QB is thinking he just bought some time to find a receiver by rolling out, and then KVN is there in about .3 seconds for the sack. Here's the play:




Out of nowhere.

2. BYU's defenders sure are injuring a lot of opponents this season. Several running backs, a few wide receivers, and quarterbacks have been taken out more than once after getting hit by a linebacker or safety. While I like the intensity, I think I'd take a little less oomph if it meant fewer blown coverages and missed tackles. Wrap up first, blow up second.

3. The offense still can't score. They had one long drive for a touchdown Friday, and their other TD came after getting a very short field thanks to a muffed punt reception (shades of the Utah game).

4. Riley Stephenson had the game of his life. I've never seen him absolutely boom so many punts in one game before, and winning the field position battle was a major reason for BYU's win.

5. On that vein, Justin Sorenson was great. Three out of four kickoffs were downed in the end zone, and the one that was returned only made it out to the 16 or so. He was also nails on his one field goal. I hope they let him try one from 50 yards plus; I think he can get it.

6. UCF's running backs were great. Big, strong, tough to take down, kept moving their legs. One day BYU will get a back like that. Juice and DiLuigi are nice and all, but not really starting talent for a Top-25 team (not that BYU is a Top-25 team).

7. Jake was bad. Under 50% completion percentage, one pick (not exactly his fault, but it was not a great throw) and one near pick (see previous parenthetical comment) and missing on third down throws all night. His overthrow of a streaking Jacobsen let the entire stadium down. Kid has all the tools, and I hope he can put it together, but how many games is he going to be subpar?

8. The offensive line has issues. Their run blocking was atrocious most of the game, and they get blown up by opposing defensive lines enough that Jake feels like he's going to get killed all the time. Accurate or not, it's not good for your quarterback to be that jumpy. I know there are injuries, but it seems the last three years we've heard how amazing the O-line will be, and then they're fat, slow and not particularly able to shove people out of the way. Something big needs to change here.

Finally, something something Big 12 invite something. Cougarboard's been all abuzz about some rumored interest the Big 12 has in inviting BYU to the conference, but you know my take on non-news: I hate it. I'll talk about an event once an event has happened, not before. Call me crazy, but I enjoy discussing facts rather than freaking out over potential future happenings.

Utah State preview later this week. In short, the Aggies are schizophrenic.

Friday

So, how about that game on Saturday? I stayed until the end with my two brothers and sister, and boy howdy did it get comical towards the end. Though I guess that first Utah touchdown was pretty funny, in retrospect. 

In short, that was one giant fail by every part of the BYU team. Offense was terrible, defense was great in the first half and got run over in the second, special teams was bad. 

I'm not sure Utah is as good as they looked in that game, and I'm not sure BYU is quite as bad as they looked, but they may be close. 

Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out who won the Guess the Score contest. I had some people comment on my Facebook status announcing the contest on my blog, and others who posted their guesses in the comment field of the actual post. 

Give me a couple days to figure it out.

As for today's game, I expect a tough game. UCF beat Boston College 30-3, then lost 17-10 to Florida International. Depending on which team shows up tonight, this could be another bad game. However, it is a long road trip for the Knights, and that always helps.

Go Cougars! Commit fewer than 8 turnovers this week, and I'll count it as an improvement.

No time to say hello, goodbye...

Image courtesy The Salt Lake Tribune

Let's just say working two jobs is doable most times, and intensely stressful at others.

Some points:

1. BYU always, always seems to drop a winnable game on the road early in the season. See: Boise State 2004, Boston College 2005, Arizona 2006, Tulsa 2007. So dropping a game against Texas in September in Austin is par for the course, I guess. Still, having a big halftime lead and then seeing the offense self destruct for the remaining 24 minutes was pretty troubling. From reports I've read, it seems Heaps was panicking quite a bit during that half, immediately dumping it down to a running back or wide receiver in the flat and rarely looking beyond them, regardless of the amount of real pressure he was facing. That, and apparently Doman is still a true believer in Anae's super-ultra conservative offense when holding onto a lead. Get up 10 points in the second quarter? Time to shut it down for the night and hope the defense can play like supermen for rest of the game. Ugh.

2. BYU vs Utah already? If the first two weeks of the season have shown us anything, it's that both of these teams' offenses are bad and both defenses are pretty impressive. I expect a 7-3 final outcome, with the lucky team coming out on top. Whoever gets that crucial recovered fumble or a punt returned for a touchdown, that kind of thing.

And, as is custom, I am holding another Guess the Score contest for this year. Place your guess for the final score in the comments, along with how many yards Heaps will throw for. The winner will get a sparkling new $10 Amazon.com gift card!

May the odds be ever in your favor.