Effort looked better than it really was

Four things stood out in BYU's step out of league play to 'rassle around with Eastern Washington on Saturday, a 42-7 win.

1. Harvey Unga. The big freshman pistol-whipped the Eagles just like he did UNLV.

2. BYU's defense. Getting turnovers, three of them, all picks.

3. The crowd. A bad-weather sellout of 64,522 for Eastern Washington? Really?

4. Non-progress: The Cougar offense yearns for a bottle of polish.

The latter may be the biggest item on the agenda as the Cougars head to San Diego next week alone atop the MWC.

"We still have work to do to clean up things," said BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall.

Like what?

"Precision and execution," said the coach, "just doing the little things exactly right in terms of the communication, to the ball being snapped correctly, to blocks being finished, to all the communication and checks being made properly, just all the execution and precision of playing the game is what I'd say at this point."

Somebody remind me, wasn't this Game 7?

"J.C. team, Division II team, Division I team — a win's a win, and I'll take it," said Unga.

Bottom line, he's right. Folks expected BYU to win 50-0. It won 42-7.

Mendenhall wanted his team to improve, to progress Saturday, albeit against the Eagles from the Big Sky. He got that on defense and was especially pleased with special teams. But in trying to tweak the passing game in the first half against the Eagles, the Cougars failed.

When BYU turned to the run, the Cougars dominated. But it wasn't because of O-line blocking. Unga mostly did his own dirty work, broke tackles and found his own way. He ran out of dead ends on the line, scouted holes and where his receivers were standing in front of tacklers. And it wasn't lost on Mendenhall.

"A lot of Harvey Unga's yards weren't blocked. He simply had great vision and wouldn't go down," said Mendenhall. "I wasn't crediting the holes that we opened, and I wasn't crediting the execution of the run game, but he specifically is to be credited."

Said Unga of being his own engineer sans an O-line: "That's not for me to say. If I did, they would beat me up."