After missing the first nine games of the BYU basketball season due to an NCAA rules infraction, Yoeli Childs was back in street clothes on the BYU bench last week, this time due to a dislocated finger. Despite his absence, the Cougars fought hard at Saint Mary’s before losing in overtime, then made quick work of Portland on Saturday at the Marriott Center. Childs’ status for this week’s games against San Diego (Thursday) and at No. 1 Gonzaga (Saturday) is unknown, but beating the Zags sans Childs would be a tall order. Cougar Insiders Dick Harmon, Jeff Call and Jay Drew look ahead to this week’s matchups and what to expect. They also talk BYU football (recruiting) and the high level of trust between BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe and Utah AD Mark Harlan. That and more on this week’s episode.
Dick Harmon: In this edition of the Cougar Insiders podcast we’ll be talking about the latest drama in BYU basketball, the injury to Yoeli Childs and what it means. We’ll also be talking about the upcoming road trip to Gonzaga. We’ll be breaking down about BYU football and the contract with the University of Utah and talking about the NFL and BYU’s representation with players in the NFL playoffs. This and much more in this edition of the Cougar Insiders podcast.
Welcome to this edition of the Cougar Insiders podcast. This is Dick Harmon, along with Jay Drew and Jeff Call and let’s have a little fun here. What the heck happened to BYU basketball with Yoeli Childs? Can he stay on the court, Jeff Call?
Jeff Call: Yeah, it was kind of interesting. Tuesday we were at practice in the annex. And a bunch of us were sitting up there kind of observing from behind the glass and they actually dropped a curtain. The intent of that was to kind of make the court smaller, like Saint Mary’s kind of, you know, make it a little bit like the court at Saint Mary’s so it was kind of hard to see. But at one point we saw Yoeli grabbing his finger. It looked like he was in a lot of pain. They rushed him off the court, you know, presumably to the trainer’s room and we didn’t know exactly the severity. I don’t think anyone did at that point. But after practice coach Pope said, you know, he should be fine and things like that.
So, as the week progressed we started hearing sources and other people, started to hear rumblings that it may be more serious than people thought and sure enough, we got the official word about an hour before tip off there at Saint Mary’s that he had an open dislocation of his finger, which I don’t think you want to Google that because it’s not for weak stomachs. But basically the bone broke through the skin and now the concern is about, the wound closing, maybe infection taking place. So anyway, he’s got a big splint on his finger. And we don’t know the timetable for his return. But it’s just incredible after all that Yoeli went through to get back on the court and now.
DH: You can’t write it like this. You can’t write a script like this of his year.
JC: And then you know the first game back he has this incredible game in his season debut. 29 points and then he can’t finish the game because he’s got cramps in his leg. So yeah, it’s another crazy turn in the season. And I have no idea when he will be back. But you have to say that without him, I mean, BYU’s fighting the best they can and they’re getting the most out of what they have, I think.
DH: Jay, they’re at Saint Mary’s, a place that they have had a very tough time winning but they get it into overtime. They have a couple of chances, a couple of shots that were makeable that they could have won that game. And they did it without Yoeli. What are we to learn from that?
Jay Drew: Yeah, this is a tough, gritty, hard nosed team. Very mentally strong. A lot of teams — when they got down nine, I don’t know how time left, I thought they were going to fade. I just thought they were going to fade. Well, yeah, now they’ve got an excuse. But they showed a lot of heart, a lot of grit and toughness. I think that’s what coach Pope has brought to the team. And I think that’s what Jake Toolson has kind of brought to the team as well. So, you know, I don’t think they can hang their heads losing at Saint Mary’s, although Saint Mary’s turned around and got beat by Santa Clara, you know, two nights later.
But if there’s one thing that kind of sticks out about this team, it’s that they’re having trouble finishing just a little bit. I know they beat Houston in a close game, but they’ve lost some really close games that if they could have pulled out they’d be having a really special season. For instance, the Utah game, even the early game against San Diego State. And and now with Saint Mary’s in overtime, I think, aren’t they 0-3 in overtime? Maybe if there’s a flaw in this team, it’s probably the failure to finish. But other than that they’ve been pretty impressive.
DH: Well, the only game they’ve really lost in kind of a, you know, it’s out of touch was Kansas. And the other games they’ve been right in it, they’ve had a chance to win. They’ve taken it to overtime. They’ve done it with Yoeli, without Yoeli. And then then we come to the game against Portland and you get TJ Haws having a career high in assists. It seems like TJ is kind of finding a role with this Mark Pope offense and defense, but he’s become more of a force than he’s been in his career, it seems like, in setting everybody up and feeling good about himself with the ball in his hands and what his role is.
JC: I think what we’re seeing from TJ is a guy who’s a senior, a guy who’s really hungry, who really wants to get to the NCAA tournament. This is his last shot. He’s been through a lot in his career. Over the years he’s seen a lot of changes. A lot of guys come and go and this is kind of his last stand. And I think, you know, we’re seeing him play with a sense of urgency. We’re seeing a guy that’s playing that wants to win. That flat out wants to win. And I don’t think he cares about his personal stats, but because of the way he’s playing, I mean, he’s accumulating some impressive numbers. I mean, he had 29 points against Saint Mary’s and like you said, not only 14 assists, but 14 assists with zero turnovers.
DH: That’s amazing.
JC: And that has not been done since Randy Reid did it back in ’95 against Texas Tech. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen something like that. So you look at it and you know, I think like what Jay was saying, a lot of the grittiness and toughness of this team, I give a lot of credit to coach Mark Pope, but I also give credit to these guys who are seniors who — we have not seen a BYU team with seniors right, Jay?
JD: I can’t remember one that’s even close to this many.
JC: There’s been years where senior night, there’s no seniors to honor because there aren’t any and so it makes a difference.
DH: That leadership and guys that really want to get out there and have a good finish to their career.
JC: Yeah, we’re seeing guys like Zach Seljaas and Dalton Nixon, I mean, you’ll go up and down the roster, I mean, guys that are just contributing in whatever way they can to help this team win.
DH: Jay, this coming week they’re going to play be playing San Diego who really is last in this league, that’s an expected win. But then they go to Gonzaga, the No. 1 team in the country. They have defeated Gonzaga when they have been ranked No. 1, that’s doable. That’s something they have done. But what’s your take on that trip to Spokane?
JD: Yeah, I hate to say it, but it’s probably going to come down to if Yoeli Childs plays. If Yoeli plays. And you know, it’s probably up in the air at this point, I think they got a shot. I really do. They were playing well enough even without him, but with him — and Gonzaga, I know they’re No. 1. But this isn’t as good of a Gonzaga team as those in the past that have been No. 1. They’ve shown that in some of their previous WCC games already. So the one thing I will say about Yoeli’s injury the last time I heard about open dislocation of a finger was way back when Ross Ahpo, the receiver, had it 10 years ago, whatever it was. And they kept saying, oh, he’ll be back in a week. He’ll be back. And this went on for like six weeks. So those things aren’t, especially if there’s infection involved, from all I’ve read and heard these things are pretty serious. So you know, knock on wood, hopefully Yoeli will be back, but I wouldn’t count on it.
DH: It looks so — I don’t want to say it looked funny, but it looks sad when you see BYU at Saint Mary’s, and they are winning that game. They have a chance to win the game. They’ve got a lot of chances to win the game. And then they flash over to Yoeli Childs. He’s got this brace on his finger. And he sitting there on the bench, like he did for the first nine games of this season, unable to help his team and you wonder what could have been? What could have been with the season, with that game with everything, Jeff?
JC: Yeah, I think that’s going to go down, as the season goes on and in the future, we’ll always look back and say what could have happened had Yoeli played the full season? It’s really too bad that he’s had these bad breaks and things that have happened. But if he can come back healthy, I think, you know there’s a lot of good things that this team can accomplish if he’s back to full strength.
DH: Let’s shift gears a little bit of football. Jay Drew, it looks like BYU and Utah have been working without any kind of a formal agreement, just kind of an agreement on, hey, let’s get together and fix our schedule down the line. Could you explain what you wrote about and what it means and kind of what you got out of that?
JD: Yeah, just kind of the background. After they announced on Sept. 23 that they were were taking two years off and that they had extended the series through 2028, I just heard some rumblings that BYU really wasn’t happy with how it all went down, that maybe they felt like they were getting strong-armed a little bit by Utah. And then they may be agreed to this without really wanting it. So I filed anopen records requests for the game contracts for this game from the University of Utah, a public university, obviously that is subject to those requests. And I just kept getting put off and put off literally after every two week deadline passed, I’d get a note from the U. basically saying we’ve been unable to fulfill that request. Give us another two weeks. Literally, this went on for more than three months.
So ironically, a week ago today, so last Monday, they finally delivered a bunch of contracts. But the contract that I actually wanted the most wasn’t in there. I had all these previous contracts. So then I got the Utah SID Paul Kirk involved. And I just said, Hey, what’s going on with this? And he said, there’s no contract. He basically said they gave you what they have. And so I said, well, You know, I’m probably going to be writing about the fact that there’s no contract. And then he kind of said, Well, you know, give us a day or two, we’ll see what we can find out.
And I also reached out to Duff Tittle at BYU and asked him, Hey, why is there no contract? And then, lo and behold, I think it was last Thursday morning they provided a contract. And sure enough, they had Tom Holmoe and Mark Harlan’s signature on there. And so I asked around and said, Hey, what’s going on? And they said, literally they just signed the contract yesterday.
So they went three months without a contract on this game that they had announced, which totally breaks BYU policy, as Jeff knows. Whenever BYU has a game that and there’s rumors and you inquire, say Hey, what’s going on? They’ll always say we’re not going to say a word until we have a contract. But for some reason, they broke form and went with this game without a contract and announced it anyway. Both schools announced it on Sept. 23 without any paperwork being done.
And so kind of the tact I took on the story, the angle I took was that they trust each other enough - these two new athletic directors, Tom Holmoe and Mark — Tom’s not new but Mark Harlan is new. They trust each other enough that they let this go that long without a contract and they finally got a contract hammered out.
DH: That’s probably a good thing about this rivalry, that that could happen in this because you hear all these things out there. And if you’re in the middle of a bunch of fans for the Utes or the Cougars, it’s do or die. It’s hatred. It’s this, that and the other. But this story kind of shows no, there was a handshake and an agreement that came forth.
JD: Yeah. And that’s what I tried to spin on it. I thought it was just an interesting story to tell people, that’s why in the Deseret News we came out with an article is just kind of the machinations behind this whole thing. But the spin that I put on it was that the trust is there that they were able to do this.
DH: Men’s volleyball, kind of on a run here, Jeff Call. I don’t know if you were able to see any of those matches, you were probably involved on the road trip to Saint Mary’s, but seems like the men’s volleyball team is off to a good start.
JC: Yeah, I mean, to beat Penn State’s a pretty good accomplishment. And I know, Jay, you know more volleyball — you follow it more closely than I have over the years.
JD: Yeah, they’re ranked No, 2, I think, in today’s rankings that just came out they’re up to 2. They won a couple big matches back east in Chicago and at Lewis, I think that’s the school that’s in — I think they’re in Ohio. I’m not sure. But they’re a pretty good volleyball school. But then sweeping Penn State, not losing a set. It looks like they got a pretty good team this year.
DH: I saw one rally that was on YouTube. It was a rally that lasted seemed like a two or three minutes of going back and forth with great saves, great digs, great spikes over the net and then people stopping it and it went on a while. It’s pretty impressive volleyball.
JD: Yeah, it’s a good team. It’s a lot of tradition, they’ve been able to tap into some foreign talent. Gabi Garcia Fernandez, I think he’s out of Puerto Rico. I’m not saying that’s a foreign country. I know my geography. But players that aren’t just local players from around here like BYU basketball kind of relies on a little bit. So it’s been good.
DH: Final word, Jeff Call. What’s on your mind?
JC: Well, I think once again, like last week, I think what I’m thinking of right now is just the success of former BYU football players in the NFL. I mean, you’ve got four BYU football players that are still in the playoffs looking to get to the Super Bowl. You got Daniel Sorensen with the Chiefs. You got Fred Warner with the 49ers and of course Jamaal Williams with the Packers. For me it makes it more fun to watch to see these guys we’ve covered for so many years. And one of the thoughts I had was I think toward the end of his career at BYU, I think Bronco Mendenhall kind of got a bad rap. This guy can’t recruit at a high level. Well, look at these guys that he brought into the program, what they’re doing in the NFL. And it’s pretty cool to see, to watch these guys play and you know, there’ll be at least one guy in the Super Bowl. I think that will be fun to watch,
JD: Last week, I had a story in the Deseret News about BYU’s recruiting efforts, how they’re going and kind of focused on the targets they have remaining that they want to sign in the first Wednesday in February. The dead period ends Jan. 16. So coming up here at the end of this week, where coaches can go back out again and make their final pushes. And it’s going to be a big couple of weeks for BYU. There’s four or five guys out there that would really, really help them if they can land them.
DH: My final word, gentlemen, again, it seems like I’m doing this every week and that is to pay tribute or a salute to somebody who’s passed on. And this past week Brian Gray, a guy that played in the late ’90s for LaVell Edwards, a cornerback. He passed away early, right near his birthday, age 44. One of the best cornerbacks that BYU’s ever had. A hard hitter, he was good size about 6-foot-1. And he ran a 440 and played on some very good teams on some very good defenses. He passed away near his home in Los Angeles. And it sounds like to me that he had been struggling with some addictions and and had a hard life and his teammates really thought a lot of him.
And then Clayne Jensen, who was the former vice president at BYU over athletics and also athletic director interim between Rondo Fehlberg and Glen Tuckett. I think that was about the era there, about the late ’80s early ’90s. He passed away at age 89. So our condolences to those two families and a shout-out to those who knew them. Rally around them at this time and our prayers are with them.
You’ve been listening to the Cougar Insiders podcast. This is Dick Harmon, along with Jeff Call and Jay Drew. We invite you to dial up this podcast, download it, listen to it wherever you find them and have a great day.
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