Correcting miscues high on Y. priority list

PROVO — Since arriving at BYU, coach Bronco Mendenhall has preached the importance of paying attention to detail.

In the wake of the Cougars' mistake-filled season-opening 16-13 setback at Arizona last Saturday, it's safe to say that Mendenhall is reinforcing that message to his team.

"The bottom line was, we didn't execute at a high enough level to win the game," he told reporters after Monday's practice.

Botched execution on a field goal attempt hurt the Cougars, as did several costly penalties.

BYU's offense scored just 13 points against the Wildcats. While Mendenhall said Arizona deserves some credit for that, he knows his team is capable of being far more productive.

"Arizona's defense played a very good football game," he said. "We had too many miscues on offense to put enough points on the board."

"We should have won the game, but we didn't put plays together like we needed to," said senior quarterback John Beck. "We lost, but you can't worry about what happens in the loss column. This coming week, we've got to prepare well for Tulsa."

The Cougar offense is looking to bounce back in a big way against the Golden Hurricane, the defending Conference USA champions. Tulsa won its opener last Thursday, 45-7, over Stephen F. Austin.

"I've watched film on them in the summer. They're a fast defense," Beck said. "From what I saw, they're pretty good. We have our work cut out for us. You can call (Tulsa's defense) a 3-3-5 because of the personnel, but it's kind of in between what we had defensively (last year) and what we have now."

BYU was whistled for four illegal procedure penalties and some of that may have to do with new NCAA rules that deal with the clock starting sooner after passing plays and first downs than it did in the past.

"I didn't notice a significant difference out there from a defensive perspective," Mendenhall said, "but I know our offensive coaches were encouraging our offense to hurry up on two or three series because the clock was down to 15 or 16 seconds and we snapped it with two or three left. There was a number of those instances. We can manage it a little better.