In this edition of the Cougar Insiders podcast, Dick Harmon, Brandon Gurney and Jay Drew weigh in on the outcome of the BYU-USC game. Who likes the Cougars and who likes the Trojans? The crew wraps up the significance of the miracle comeback double-overtime win at Tennessee, and examines the key aspects of BYU’s challenge in taking on the ranked Trojans in Provo.
Dick Harmon: Coming up on this edition of the Cougar Insiders podcast, we’re going to talk about the upset win over the University of Tennessee at Rocky Top in Knoxville, Tennessee. We’ll break that down and why and how it ranks in BYU’s historic comeback victories. We’ll also talk about the upcoming game with the USC Trojans and how tough that will be and what BYU must do to defeat the Trojans here in Provo. This and much more on this edition of the Cougar Insiders podcast.
Hey, welcome to this edition of the Cougar Insiders from the Deseret News. I’m Dick Harmon, a columnist for the Deseret News along with Jay Drew, a beat writer and also Brandon Gurney. We’re trying to get you the latest and the up-to-date stuff on BYU sports. We’d like to welcome our sponsor, Mr. Mac, doing a great job if you need something. Go see them. You’ve got a missionary going, you just want to look good, call them.
Well, gentlemen, we just got back from Rocky Top where we saw maybe one of the top three, maybe one of the top five miracle comebacks in BYU history. I thought they were dead for sure. In fact, I was in the elevator going down from the press box to the field. And school Vice President Matt Richards and his wife got in there. She’s a former Cougarette and, you know, obviously they were just kind of looking a little bit down. Like OK, here it is. We’re on this big stage in this great stadium and these guys have fought but they just come up short. We get down to the field, we walk out there, we then see something that I didn’t think would happen and that’s something that didn’t happen in the entire game. BYU was unable to sustain a long drive or have any big huge giant plays.
And here they are inside their own 20 and they have a 64-yard pass from Zach Wilson to Micah Simon. It just blew up. Jake Oldroyd kicks it. It’s tied in overtime and then you get to two overtimes, a thrilling comeback win, Jay for BYU. Something that nobody expected.
Jay Drew: Absolutely. I was down on the field with Jeff Call. We were on the far end, away from where BYU was. And I turned to Jeff and I said well, you know, just short. Kind of what everyone predicted, a little Tennessee victory. And then next thing you know ,Micah Simon’s running free and the ball’s in his hands. And BYU fans, and there were a lot of them there, 10,000 or so, are going nuts. And it was pretty amazing. I agree with you, Dick. It’s got to be in the top five, maybe top three BYU comebacks of all time. Obviously, there was the game at Nebraska a few years ago, the Hail Mary, but this one was just as improbable of an ending.
DH: Yeah, I would say that one that you know, Tanner Mangum was only three months off his mission and that was a great comeback. I would say also the game with Notre Dame back in ‘94 when BYU kind of beat Notre Dame and then the Boise State comeback. I think Kai Nacua had a couple of interceptions and then it was (Mitchell) Juergens that had the touchdown pass. And then of course the one and the only is the 1980 Jim McMahon miracle throw to Clay Brown. That’s got to be the biggest comeback. One of the, probably the top five comebacks in college football history. But Brandon Gurney, this team needed the injection of this win in a bad, bad way. Because football is a grinding sport and to grind out and grind out and not have any success would have been terrible for this team heading into this week.
Brandon Gurney: Absolutely. There’s a lot of positives to take from this game. First off, I’m happy for Micah Simon. He’s a kid that’s kind of been grinding and hasn’t really had that chance to shine through. Now he’s going to be immortalized as a guy who made one of the biggest plays in BYU football history. I mean, let’s be honest, people remember Micah Simon, oh, he’s that guy who made that play. Good for him. I mean, he deserves it. He’s worked hard. I think more importantly than that, I think what was really lacking in the Utah game and what I feared going into the season was another playmaker down the field other than Matt Bushman. They needed that other guy and I think Micah showed he can possibly be that guy. You don’t want to read too much into just one game but I think what he showed is the potential to open things up and take attention away from Matt Bushman, which is going to be a big thing for this offense moving forward.
DH: Well, you saw the emergence of another weapon for BYU, Jay Drew, and that’s Ty’Son Williams. I mean, when this game was going into second overtime and both teams were tired, BYU’s offensive line found a push and this kid pounded it hard. Going in standing up on that last play, literally pushing maybe nine guys over the line of scrimmage. Very impressive performance by this grad transfer.
JD: Yeah, he was everything they said he’d be. He had almost 100 rushing yards. He broke some tackles, scored the first touchdown that got them on the board, for sure he was everything. I thought maybe lost in that was some pretty good play-calling. The reverse really caught Tennessee off guard, that got BYU down there inside the 10. That reverse to Aleva Hifo was big. And then also in the first overtime, the throw to Talon Shumway, another guy who BYU fans have kind of been waiting to see what he could do, maybe break out and make some plays. He made a great catch there and scored so it looks like that’s what BYU finally has is some playmakers. You know, moving into these next two games they’ll really be needed.
DH: Another person we probably should, two people — you know Jake Oldroyd, he was 3 for 3. He’s a perfect 5 for 5 in field-goal kicking and his punting has been a very big weapon for BYU in these first two games. The guy’s come on strong. And then Kavika Fonua gets an interception right at the end of that game, it was the third quarter, wasn’t it? But I think that play right there turned the tables for Tennessee because they began to become very conservative and not let that guy throw the ball very much. And BYU ended up handling their run pretty good. Here and there. There’s only two big plays by Tennessee, a 51-yarder and a 53-yarder a pass and a run. But from there on BYU I think competed. That was a game-turner was it not?
BG: Yeah, (Jarrett) Guarantano, he wasn’t seeing the coverage. I don’t know what specific adjustments Ilaisa made during the game, but it was very obvious watching the game that this guy was not identifying at all what BYU was throwing out there on most occasions. And you saw limited to underneath coverage and trying to go over the top and I think that really aided in the comeback, just making Tennessee, not one dimensional, but just taking away a dimension of what it was able to do offensively.
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You know this game coming up against Southern Cal is really interesting because BYU really needs to put pressure on that freshman quarterback. They really haven’t done that with the three-man rush and what they’ve been doing. They’ve kind of relied on dropping back eight people in a zone coverage and putting up three or four here and there. But it hasn’t been really effective against Utah or Tennessee. But now it’s kind of hurt by the fact that Devin Kaufusi is going to be held out of the first part of this game for the targeting he had at the Tennessee game. Jay, BYU could really go a long ways if they could pressure USC’s freshman quarterback, but it doesn’t seem like that’s what BYU wants to do or can do or is really good at doing. Or are we just misjudging what Ilaisa Tuiaki can do?
JD: Yeah, I think listening to Kalani Sitake’s news conference press briefing yesterday, it sounds like they are more content to sit back, play that, you know, nickel coverage, get as many fast guys on the field as possible and play that bend-but-don’t-break defense, trying not to give up any big plays. It seems like that’s what they’ve settled on. And they did that against Tennessee. And I think they’ll do that again against USC this weekend. Not saying they can’t maybe put in a few more blitz packages, because I think they can really confuse this freshman if they can mix up their coverages. Like Brandon just said, Guarantano struggled against some of those exotic coverages that they had and I think they can do the same this week. But there will come a time where BYU will need a pass rush. You just can’t give any good quarterback a lot of time back there even if you drop eight guys. They’re going to find a guy eventually.
DH: You’re gonna face some guys like Jordan Love, who probably is one of the best quarterbacks in the country, is having a great season. But yeah, Brandon Gurney, this defense, this kind of a bend-but-don’t-break, we’ve seen that even out of Bronco Mendenhall who believed in blitzing a lot. But yet they dropped back a lot of times and let their zone coverage kind of protect the big play and then when they got in a compressed situation down near the goal line, they were hoping that the compression would help them, with a short field, to defend a lot better. And for the most part, it kind of worked for Bronco Mendenhall. And last year it kind of worked for Tuiaki.
BG: What’s interesting about this game is BYU’s pass defense has been good, but you look at who BYU’s played over the last few years. They haven’t faced a prolific passing attack. They just haven’t. They haven’t faced that quarterback that can dice them up. I don’t know if USC can do it. I mean, one game is hard to go on. But what I saw Saturday, and I watched the entire USC-Stanford game, they were able to do whatever they wanted.
DH: I don’t think Stanford played very good defense though. They took bad angles, they did tackling route position. But I don’t know if that was ...
BG: But a lot of those angles are made by by the routes of these athletes that USC has. And the caliber — I don’t know if BYU’s faced this. In fact, I know they haven’t. They haven’t faced outside threats the type that USC is going to be presenting this Saturday. The unknown is the quarterback, right. The first game, there’s film on him, BYU knows how he was able to exploit Stanford. You counteract that, maybe show him something new. But of course that new quarterback, he’s going to have that first game to go on and maybe be that much better. A lot of unknowns, but what stands out is USC has athletes. They have guys that can beat BYU where other teams haven’t been able to do so. And also, I don’t know if Tennessee’s good. In fact, I don’t think they are good. I had that notion going in. And BYU had to have a miracle to come back to beat that team. USC is better than Tennessee. I think we can all agree on that. And I think this is going to be a huge test for this BYU team. And especially for the pass defense, which is going to be severely tested.
DH: Well, it is a road game for USC and road games are tough. And this is at altitude and BYU has a little bit of momentum, a lot more than they would have had coming off of a loss. Jay, what are your keys to this game for BYU to win?
JD: I think ball control is going to be a big thing, not only ball security, but ball control, keeping the ball away from the USC offense. And that means some sustained drives by BYU. They weren’t able to do that much against Tennessee or against Utah in the second half. So I just think you got to keep the ball out of USC’s offense’s hands and make it a low-scoring defensive struggle if at all possible. So that would be a key. I think another key is the crowd has really got to do its part to rattle this freshman quarterback. I said that when they played Utah, I said the crowd needs to be a factor. And it was to a certain extent and then it kind of got taken out of the game after the pick-six. So I think those are two keys. I think BYU can rattle this freshman quarterback with their defensive pressures and different defensive coverages. But I also think the noise can be a big factor as well.
DH: I would agree with everything you said Jay, plus I’d say BYU’s got to get turnovers. They got to get some fumbles, they have to get a couple of interceptions. Those things seem to be great equalizers here. Brandon, what are your keys?
BG: They need to get out to an early lead. They need to dictate what’s going on in the game and not come out flat. That’s what we’ve seen from BYU over the first two games of the season is the offensive execution has not been sharp coming out. It needs to be sharp, they need to dictate it, they need to take that first drive and go down and score. That’s absolutely what needs to happen, then the crowd gets into it and all the other factors you guys have mentioned I think come easier if that happens. So getting out to an early lead and just putting your stamp on the game early is very important in this game.
DH: Real quick gentlemen, your predictions for Saturday. I think that I had them going 0-4 in September. They’ve already destroyed that with a win at Tennessee, but I just don’t see how they can beat Southern Cal because of the talent factor and I don’t think they’ll get to that quarterback and he’s good enough to make plays.
JD: I predicted a 1-3 start and at the time I predicted that the win would be over USC. So I’m going to stick with that. Might surprise some people. I think BYU is going to rise up. I think they’re going to, like Brandon said, get an early lead. I think another key will be to score touchdowns in the red zone, which cost them against Utah, almost cost them against Tennessee. I see BYU pulling out a win in this one, 31-28.
DH: Well, Brandon Gurney, this game will be again officiated by Pac-12 officials and I’m not saying that they do a good job or a bad job, but it could be a factor. But what are your key factors?
BG: Well first off this is a historic podcast right here because Dick Harmon and myself are going to predict a BYU loss while Jay Drew predicts a BYU win. So I think that’s really notable. Yeah, I think BYU’s up against it here. As mentioned, I still don’t think Tennessee is a good team. I don’t think that’s a thing and I think playing at home is still a thing for BYU. I’m not convinced this team can play its best ball at home until they show me they can. I think USC, with this passing attack, is going to be more formidable in the secondary space since Tuiaki probably arrived at BYU. I think it’s going to prove too much and I think BYU loses this one probably 34-27.
DH: Well, that’s a wrap. For all of you out there, this is this edition of the Cougar Insiders podcast. We excuse Jeff Call from being here today. But we’re trying our best to give you the very best. Got a good team here. We’re going to rally, cover this the best we can this weekend. We hope that you’ll find us online. We hope you’ll download this podcast share it with others. We also have a Cougar Insiders newsletter that comes out Tuesday evenings at 8 o’clock. I’ve been working on that today. You can sign up by going to Deseret News com Thanks for joining us today.
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