Righting November: Once a problem month for the Cougars, Bronco has helped team reverse trend

PROVO — BYU enters Saturday's game at Wyoming on top of the Mountain West Conference, riding a six-game winning streak and needing one victory to clinch at least a piece of the league championship.

The Cougars have been in a similar situation before.

Back in 1999, in coach LaVell Edwards' next-to-last season at the helm, BYU traveled to Laramie in control of the MWC race with an 8-1 record overall, a six-game winning streak, a national ranking, and needing one win to secure an outright MWC title in the conference's inaugural year.

As it turned out, the Cowboys dominated the Cougars, 31-17, and, when the game was over, delirious Wyoming fans ripped down the goal posts.

That loss triggered a tailspin for BYU, which went on to fall at home to Utah and ended up in a three-way tie for the championship with the Utes and Cowboys. The Cougars finished the season with a defeat in the Motor City Bowl against Marshall.

That setback at Wyoming eight years ago also started a dubious trend — mediocrity in November.

From 1999-2004, the Cougars posted a lackluster 9-9 record in that month (including a 2-4 mark against Utah). If, as the adage goes, championships are won in November, no wonder BYU won only two titles during that stretch.

But Bronco's boys are bucking that trend.

Since coach Bronco Mendenhall was hired as head coach prior to the 2005 campaign, the Cougars are 8-1 in November games, including last year's perfect 4-0 performance. BYU's only November defeat since Mendenhall took the reins of the program came in 2005 at home, in overtime, at the hands of Utah.

For the record, the Cougars have won almost as many games the past three years in November (eight) as they did in the previous six years' worth of November contests (nine).

So what is the reason for this turnaround in the final month of the season? For starters, Mendenhall doesn't let his players worry about what the calendar says.

"The main key to our success in the later months of the season is because Coach Mendenhall stays so consistent," said senior linebacker Kelly Poppinga. "It doesn't matter when we play. He's always the same person. He coaches us in the same way, and he doesn't change anything.