BYU football: Cougars should continue pouring on points

PROVO — It looked for a few minutes like a real gut-gripper, and then it didn't. BYU scored twice in the final six minutes of the first half, and suddenly the Wyoming Cowboys were as dead as the lunar exploration program.

The game ended with the score BYU 44, Wyoming nada.

Isn't there some point you tell your Rottweilers to stand down? Isn't there a place where you start feeling sorry for the other guy?

BYU says yes, and proved as much by putting in the second- and third-string quarterbacks.

I say don't look back, because somebody — Boise State or Utah, for instance — might be gaining on you.

What, you think this is about fairness?

In that case, someone should kill off the BCS.

For the second straight week, BYU shut out its opponent. But instead of prestigious UCLA, this week it was plain old Wyoming, the Cougars' tackling dummy all these years. The 'Pokes haven't won in Provo since giant lizards — or at least Ozzy Osbourne — ruled the earth.

Not that anyone expected Wyoming to win. The Cowboys struggled just to beat low-budget Ohio and North Dakota State, then got drubbed by Air Force. Their last victory in Provo was in 1987.

Hence, the Cougars made it two monster wins in a row. Last week it was a 59-0 victory over UCLA on semi-national TV. Now this, for a combined score of 103-0. That shouldn't be a two-game football total, it should be a zip code.

"I appreciate the coaches calling off the dogs," said Wyoming coach Joe Glenn.

Yet the sad truth is, BYU would be justified in going for obscene scores. When you're from the Mountain West, you need to do these things. Desperate times call for desperate measures. That way, when some AP voter in Greenville looks up the scores before casting his vote, he says, "Wow. They're winning by 50 points. Must be good. I think I'll move 'em up a couple of spots."

A 10-7 score simply won't suffice.

That's the problem with this BCS baloney. It's still arbitrary and subjective. Since the Mountain West Conference doesn't have an automatic BCS bowl berth, its teams must draw attention by whatever means possible. That includes beating everyone into puree.

Hence, when Utah became the first team to crash the BCS party in 2004, the Utes won their regular-season games by an average of 26 points. They scored over 40 points nine times, over 50 points four times.