BYU football: Cougars know danger of overlooking Tulane

NEW ORLEANS — Sandwiched between a monumental win over Oklahoma and next week's much-anticipated home-opener against Florida State is No. 9 BYU's meeting with Tulane today at the Louisiana Superdome.

After last Saturday's upset of the Sooners, the Cougars are no longer flying under the radar. The nation has taken notice of them. There's talk by pundits around the country about BYU earning a Bowl Championship Series bid, or even playing for a national championship.

So how are the Cougars handling all of this hype as they face a Green Wave team that was pounded at home in its season-opener last week?

Simple, quarterback Max Hall said.

"You don't pay attention to it," he said. "You treat Tulane just like they're Oklahoma. ... We're not going to go in there and think we can just play and beat these guys. We're going to try to be very physical with them, just like Oklahoma, and we're going to attack and get after them. If we do that, we'll win the football game.

"But if we have turnovers and we go in there with spacey minds and not play football, they have a chance to beat us. In college football, anything can happen on any night. You've got to be prepared for it. ... This team is hungry still and we want to win football games."

The way tight end Dennis Pitta sees it, the stakes might be even higher than they were a week ago.

"We've got to be able to respond. This week is maybe even bigger than last week because if we don't handle our business this week, then last Saturday doesn't mean a whole lot," he said. "We've got to come out and play well against Tulane and continue to gain momentum throughout the season and end the way we want to end."

All week, coach Bronco Mendenhall has been reminding his team — and the media — that there's a lot of football yet to be played. He's also confident that his team is not going to overlook Tulane.

"This season is so young and we've played one football game," he said. "I think we've learned a lot from last year. I can't say for sure everything has been learned that needs to be. But right now, I don't see any of the signs that would lead us to that. But certainly, Tulane is capable and well-coached. To us, that's all that's left in the season, is one game."

A year ago, the Cougars peaked with an early-season 59-0 clobbering of UCLA and they seemed to plateau from there.

Is Mendenhall concerned with possible similarities between the UCLA victory and one against Oklahoma?