BYU football: Bye gives Mendenhall time for examination

PROVO — Immersed in a bye week, and coming off an embarrassing 38-7 home loss to TCU, BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall is examining every aspect of his team.

"We'll continue to figure out ways to improve our football program from here through the rest of the season," Mendenhall said after Saturday's game. "I'll look hard at everything — not only how I'm coaching the team but our organizational model. Because what's happened is, it's helped us to be very consistent for four years. But now the expectations of where we're trying to get is a lot clearer to everybody. Now, possibly changes have to be put in place for us to achieve that next step. … I think the issue now is measuring where we currently are where I would like us to be. That reality was something I was watching happen out there, and I was frustrated and disappointed with that. Mostly with myself rather than our team."

Mendenhall acknowledged that his team's practices aren't as long as other teams' practices, explaining that is because he wants to preserve his players' health and keep them fresh. But that's something he'll look at changing, he said.

The difference between TCU and BYU became clear Saturday — the Cougars have now lost by a combined score of 70-14 the past two seasons to the Horned Frogs. TCU's superior speed and athleticism, once again, exposed BYU's weaknesses. So how can the Cougars close that gap?

Mendenhall said it's all about execution.

"I don't think our program model will ever be identical to what TCU's is. But what I've always prided our program on is that our execution and collective will be stronger, by the end of the day, than our opponents'. What's happened the past two years with TCU is, they have very good talent and then their execution as a collective beat ours. So that to me, when the gap widens, it's when our execution isn't flawless or precise as a football team. Because we built (the program) that way, with the talent base that we have, which I love, if we don't execute the way we need to do, then it becomes difficult for us to play from behind and catch up the way we need to. I'm leaning a lot toward execution. I think the type of young men we have in our program, it's work ethic and conscientious kids. But a talented team that out-executes us, which has happened two years in a row, that's where I think we need to close the gap."

What role did TCU's speed play in its blowout win?

"I didn't think it was necessarily their speed that hurt us," said safety Andrew Rich. "It was the mistakes that we made."