BYU football: Mistakes, bad field position spoil Steve Sarkisian's return trip to Provo

PROVO — Washington coach Steve Sarkisian had the chance to reminisce about the time he spent here on the day before his team played BYU in the season-opener for both teams, and again on Saturday, the morning of the game.

Sarkisian, who played quarterback at BYU for two years and led the school to one of its greatest seasons in school history when it went 14-1 in 1996 and won the Cotton Bowl, caught glimpses of his former stomping grounds as he drove around town on Friday and Saturday.

"Good memories — all good memories," he said.

Then it was time to get down to the business of trying to win a football game.

When that happened, though, Sarkisian's players ultimately couldn't overcome the mistakes they made and the poor field position they found themselves in to get a victory.

Washington made oodles of mistakes (especially on special teams), its offense was shut out in the second half, and heralded senior quarterback Jake Locker was kept relatively quiet as the Huskies fell, 23-17, before a sold-out crowd of 63,771 Saturday evening.

"As a football team, we played with good effort. We shot ourselves in the foot and made mistakes that were crucial in the game," said Locker.

Indeed.

Sarkisian's guys especially struggled on special teams. A punt sailed over punter Will Mahan's head for a safety, returner Chris Polk muffed the ball twice on kickoffs, and Washington committed a crucial roughing-the-punter penalty on a BYU punt, amongst other errors.

"We rough a punter, we snap a punt over your head, you drop a kickoff on the 1-yard line, you muff another kickoff on the 7, and in turn, I think with all of that, BYU did a good job of managing field position," said Sarkisian. "That was something they focused on coming in to the game, and it paid dividends for 'em.

"We were playing with a longer field; they were playing with a shorter field."

The battle for field position clearly seemed to take its toll on Washington as Saturday's contest unfolded.

The Huskies finished with 394 yards of total offense, with Locker throwing for 266 yards and rushing for 29 more, and they often drove down the field.

But more often than not, those drives didn't ultimately lead to points, and in the second half, they didn't lead to any points.

Many of Washington's field position woes could be traced to the Huskies' special teams, but Locker said afterward that everyone made mistakes.

"I don't think you can point to one thing," he said. "You talk to coach (Sarkisian), you talk to a defensive player, you talk to anybody else on offense — we all left things on the field. We all had opportunities."

In the end, those mistakes prevented Sarkisian from marking his return to BYU with a victory.

Not that it wasn't nonetheless a pleasant experience for the former All-American QB to be back in the familiar surroundings of Provo, Utah.

"Not a lot's changed. It's very similar," he said. "Got a chance to see some good old friends, and all in all — outside of the outcome of the game — it was a good experience."

e-mail: drasmussen@desnews.com