The BYU Cougars and Memphis Tigers have stressed the past few days that they still have a lot to prove.
The two teams, which will meet in the inaugural Miami Beach Bowl on Monday at Marlins Park, want to end their season with a victory that will help validate what they did to finish the regular season.
The last time the Cougars lost a game was against Boise State on Oct. 24. The Tigers, who will enter Monday’s game with a six-game winning streak, last lost to Houston on Oct. 11.
Yet both teams have a clear understanding as to what a win in the Miami Beach Bowl would mean.
“This is a big game,” BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “Playing well on national television stage is big for the BYU brand and it should be fun to do it a long way from home with people who normally would not see you play. At the end of the day, nine wins is better than eight.”
Both teams have enjoyed spending time in Miami, which included the players attending a Miami Heat game. Yet Mendenhall and Memphis coach Justin Fuente have preached to their teams how disciplined they have needed to be in preparing for the game.
The players have done their best to not let the South Florida lifestyle and nightlight distract them from what is most important: winning the final game of their season.
“There are distractions, but we can win this bowl game,” said BYU receiver Mitch Mathews, who has served as a volunteer missionary in the Miami area. He added: “Bowl games come down to who is more focused during the bowl week.”
Many of the Tigers have said they will be beaten if they enter the game with the mentally of just being happy to have reached the Miami Beach Bowl.
“They are a very good football team,” Memphis tight end Alan Cross said of BYU. “They are going to be older than us and a little bit more mature. They’ve played three American teams earlier this season and UCF competed with them pretty well. If they can compete with them, I know we can compete with them.”
Fuente said he expects the game to come down to which team can win at the line of scrimmage and who can create and take advantage of turnovers. He also said his biggest concern in preparing for the Cougars is their size and strength. This season, BYU has averaged 463.4 yards per game.
“They’re very big and physical and they play with great emotion,” Fuente said. “They’re a very tough football team that does not make mistakes. We’ll have to play really well just to have a chance.”
BYU quarterback Christian Steward, who was the backup before starter Taysom Hill sustained a season-ending broken leg injury, said the Cougars are not underestimating Memphis despite the fact this is the Tigers’ first bowl game since 2008.
In fact, Steward said he feels the Cougars are the underdogs.
“If we can win a bowl game against a great Memphis team, I feel like we can really show people that we’re a team that needs to be reckoned with,” Steward said. “We just want to prove ourselves. We still feel like people around the country don’t respect us the way they had at the beginning of the season, and we want to prove them wrong.”
If the Cougars have a clear advantage, it will be their experience of playing in a bowl game the last nine seasons. Fuente knows it will be his job to get his Tigers to not be too excited or too nervous early in the game.
“The team that we’re going to play is more familiar with this,” Fuente said. “They’re also quite a bit older. This is a very mature group we’re going to play. We’re going to have to try to match their maturity. That’ll be an incredible task for us.”
nataylor@sun-sentinel.com. On Twitter @ByNateTaylor
