HB Arnett’s
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hbarnett@fiber.net and hbarnett@xmission.com
Vol. 29,
Issue 9 - September 29, 2008
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CAN YOU
HAVE A ONCE IN A LIFETIME EXPERIENCE TWICE?
Having a once in a
lifetime experience twice is kind of like having deja vu all over again.
Feeble minds like
mine are not equipped to deal with such philosophical puzzles as these.
A once in a
lifetime experience was what I thought I had when BYU won a national
championship in football in 1984.
Been there, done
that.
Now, I may have to
gear up again for a sequel.
If Harrison Ford
and Sylvester Stallone can continue to do movies, I guess I can expand my life
expectancy to include another once in a lifetime national title in football.
Believe it or not,
there are now actually some credible national college football writers and
commentators making an early case for BYU as a national title possibility.
We aren't one of
those. But as many like to point out, we aren't national and we aren't
credible.
Half of that
description also applies to ESPN College Football analyst Kirk Herbstreit.
You may remember
that it was Herbstreit who dismissed BYU before the season started and said
that
Not me. I said
before the season started and I will say it again now, BYU will not go
undefeated this season. Nothing against the Cougars. They are a very, very good
football team, but in our opinion, going undefeated in the college game goes
against the percentages.
We cite USC,
That is why I
still stick with the prediction of BYU losing at least one game this year. I
also want to go on the record by saying that the one loss will not happen this
week against
As Bronco
Mendenhall preaches, however, we have to be held accountable for what we say.
As punishment for
my predictions, if they don't come to fruition, I will volunteer to co-star
with Stallone in his next movie. The working title is Rambo In a Rest Home.
Like Herbstreit,
however, it never hurts to cover your backside in case I am wrong and BYU does
go undefeated.
Here then is the
front side of the BCS and BYU.
BYU is currently
ranked No. 7 in the USA Today Coaches Poll and No. 9 in the Harris Interactive
Poll. Those are the two polls that count. Both are used by the BCS in its
formula for picking teams for a national title game. Each poll is a third of
the formula.
For the record,
BYU is also ranked No. 8 in the most recent AP poll.
Also, for the
record, and since the interest and BYU are both so high in the polls this early
in the season, here is the actual BCS Rankings formula. The first release of
BCS rankings will be issued on October 19. That will be three days after BYU
has played TCU in
If the Cougars get
a win over TCU in
BCS
Rankings
Standings include three
components: USA Today Coaches Poll, Harris Interactive College Football Poll
and an average of six computer rankings. Each component will count one-third
toward a team's overall BCS score.
All three components
shall be added together and averaged for a team's ranking in the BCS Standings.
The team with the highest average shall rank first in the BCS Standings. The
first BCS Standings of the 2008 season will be released on Sunday, October 19.
The BCS Standings will be used for:
1. Selecting the teams
that will participate in the national championship game.
2. Determining any other
automatic qualifiers; and,
3. Establishing the pool
of eligible teams for at-large selection.
Polls
In the Harris Interactive
Football Poll and USA Today Coaches Poll, a team will be evaluated on the
number of voting points it receives in each poll. A team's Harris Interactive
score will be its points in the poll divided by its total possible voting
points (if 114 voters, then 2850=114x25). The same formula will apply to the
USA Today Coaches poll and its total voting points (if 63 voters, then
1575=63x25).
The number of actual
voters, which can vary, is figured into the computation on a weekly basis in
stating each team's percentage of a possible perfect score.
Computer Rankings
Six computer rankings
will be used: Jeff Sagarin, Anderson & Hester, Richard Billingsley, Colley
Matrix, Kenneth Massey, and Dr. Peter Wolfe. Points will be assigned in inverse
order of ranking from 1-25. A team's highest and lowest computer ranking will
be discarded in calculating its computer rankings average. The four remaining
computer scores will be averaged and the total will be calculated as a
percentage of 100.
All BYU has to do
to make noise in the national title story and BCS rankings is continue to win.
That will take care of two-thirds of the equation with the two polls.
The interesting
part of the equation are the six computer polls.
They are quirky at
best.
For example, Sagarin
currently has BYU rated No. 8.
Andersen &
Hester won't have its first rating release until Oct 19. Last year, their final
pre-bowl game rankings had Missouri No. 1, Kansas No. 2 followed by LSU, USC
and Georgia.
Wolfe's ratings
also won't be release until Oct 19. Last year his system had Virginia Tech
finishing at No. 1 followed by
The latest Colley
Matrix ranking has BYU ranked No. 19.
Billingsly
currently has BYU at No. 8. He has
Massey has
As you can see,
BYU is doing extremely well on the actual football field and in the two polls
that count, but when it comes to the six computer rankings, it is still quite
quirky.
Polls and People
Since the polls
are really a popularity contest of people selected to vote it might be a good
time to take a look at some of those people who either have BYU or Mountain
West connections.
Here are some
names we found in the Harris Poll with those connections.
Bob Gagliardi is
the sports editor of the Wyoming Tribune in
As for the coaches
poll, Joe Glenn of
Besides Glenn,
both Rick Neuheisel and Tyrone Willingham have also played BYU and have votes
in the coaches poll. Urban Meyer has Mountain West connections, having been the
coach at
HAWS
PICKS BYU
It was a big day
for BYU basketball last Wednesday when Tyler Haws, the 6-5 wing from Lone Peak
HS in
Haws had narrowed
his college choice to either Stanford or BYU.
Here are the vital
stats for Haws.
He has led his
high school team to two straight 5-A state championships.
He has been a two
time state MVP as selection by one of the state's two major newspapers.
He averaged 18.8
points per game as a sophomore and 20.8 points as a junior.
He was the 2008
Utah Gatorade Player of the year.
Those are the
things that you can put on paper.
What Dave Rose and
all other programs recruiting Haws wanted, was what you couldn't put on paper
and what they saw on the court.
Haws is a player.
He is not a highlight film.
Most basketball
fans confuse the two.
What Haws does is
win. He will not be a Kobe Bryant or Lebron James.
He doesn't have
that kind of athletic ability.
Manu
Genobli
We have described
Haws before as a Manu Genobli type player. The 6-6 Argentinean is not extremely
athletic and certainly isn't a Kobe Bryant or Lebron James, but he can score on
them and play with them and more importantly, beat them.
Here's our take on
Haws. He is a decent shooter. Not great, but decent. He is a decent ball
handler. Not great, but decent. He rebounds well for his size. Not great, but
decent.
He is a great
finisher and a great go-to-guy.
We expect that to
continue at BYU.
When BYU has been
good, they have had go-to players and finishers. The two most recent were Keena
Young and Travis Hansen.
We expect Haws to
be a level or two above those two as a finisher and go-to guy.
As good as Young
and Hansen were, the last time BYU had a go-to guy who could deliver a clutch
NCAA win, his name was Danny Ainge.
Haws is no Ainge.
Ainge was an open court player. Haws is a slasher and a scorer. What Haws
does is finish. He can get to the basket and either convert or get fouled. That
is a rarity these days.
He also is a guy
that wants the ball in his hands when the game is on the line and more
importantly, he is a guy that the coaches want to have the ball in those same
situations.
The commitment by
Haws has been the culmination of five years of recruiting by Rose and his
staff.
Haws has been at
the top of their board for the last three seasons.
He has also been
the topic of recruiting conversations by BYU fans for the last two years.
We have never had
so many emails from so many different people who claim to be neighbors, ward
members, insiders, clairvoyants and clerics, who have mostly said that Haws
would not be signing with BYU.
That told us just
how good Haws was as a player and how good Dave Rose was as a recruiter.
FLUFF
AND STUFF
Back in the WAC...In 2012, BYU will
have a MWC schedule and a WAC schedule. This past week it was announced that
BYU and
That means that in
2012, BYU will be playing 3 WAC teams and Washington as part of their
non-conference slate for that year. The other two WAC teams will be
There are some who
think that BYU adding
The old Utah
basketball coach always told recruits that if they signed with him, he would do
all he could do to make sure that he would schedule a game in, or close to, the
home town of that particular recruit during his time in Majerus' program.
That could also be
the case with Manti Te'o, the outstanding linebacker from Punahou HS in
Te'o, who is LDS,
has indicated that regardless of where he signs, he will be serving an LDS
mission. That means that should he sign with the Cougars, he would play as a
freshman in 2009, be gone for the 2010 and 2011 seasons while on a mission and
then be back in time to play in
Quarterback Time Line...It is no
secret that BYU coaches have a timeline for quarterbacks at BYU for the next
eight years.
It involves Max
Hall for this season and next. It then includes Riley Nelson, the soon-to-be
transfer from
Jake Heaps is also
in the plans, despite the fact that he is only a junior in high school and BYU
still has to recruit and sign him.
Heck, why stop at
eight years?
Let's throw in
another possible qb prospect who is still in junior high.
His name is Tanner
Mangum and he is a ninth grader at Les Bois Junior High in
The thing that
sets Mangum apart from other junior high students at his school is that after
the final bell, he boards a school bus and heads over to
In his first game,
he threw for 335 yards and four touchdowns in a 48-27 win over Kuna. He was 14
years old at the time. He has since turned 15.
Mangum, is 6-1,
165 pounds. His older brother, Parker Mangum, was a walkon at BYU last year.
After three games, Mangum, the ninth grader, had completed 67-108 passes for
1002 yards and 10 touchdowns.
We don't know if
this kid will continue to develop and be a Division I prospect, but as long as
the Cougars are already out eight years on their quarterback recruiting chart,
they might as well make it twelve years.
More Offers...BYU continues to recruit
for the future. Recently the Cougars have put three more scholarships on the
table for two high school juniors and a sophomore. All three are LDS.
Harvey Langi is a
6-1, 205 pound sophomore running back from Bingham HS in
The Cougars have
also offered junior defensive lineman Kona Schwenke of Kahuku HS in
BYU also has put
an offer on the table for junior linebacker Zac Stout. He plays at Oaks
Christian, a private high school in
TELEVISION
TIMETABLE
BYU vs.
Friday, Oct 3 at
Kickoff: 6:00 pm Mountain
Time
TV: KJZZ (tentative) and
BYUTV
BYU vs.
Saturday, Oct 11 at
Kickoff: 4:00 PM Mountain
Time
TV: Mtn
BYU vs.
TCU
Thursday, Oct 16 at
Kickoff: 6:00 pm Mountain
Time
TV: Versus