BYU football: Cougars claim their mood, motivation better this year

PROVO — Last December, BYU was coming off a crushing 24-point loss at undefeated, Sugar Bowl-bound Utah, and it held only a handful of practices before meeting a highly motivated Arizona team that hadn't been bowling in a decade.

Not surprisingly, the Cougars lost to the Wildcats, 31-21, in the Las Vegas Bowl.

A year later, No. 15 BYU (10-2) is making its fifth consecutive trip to Las Vegas — with a matchup against No. 16 Oregon State (8-4) on Dec. 22 (6 p.m., ESPN) — but coach Bronco Mendenhall and his players say the mood, and the motivation, of the team is much better this time around.

While Mendenhall wholeheartedly credited Arizona for the way it played last season, he explained that his team entered that contest deflated. Because of all of the hype of surrounding the possibility of playing in a Bowl Championship Series game in 2008 and having to settle for the Las Vegas Bowl, getting blown out by the archrival Utes, and a matchup against the Wildcats for the third straight year, created a recipe for a poor showing by his team at Sam Boyd Stadium.

But because of the chance this year to face a ranked Oregon State squad that finished in a tie for second place in the Pac-10, and the fact the Cougars are on the heels of a dramatic 26-23 overtime victory over Utah, there's an excitement around the program.

"We're playing a very good football team, a team I know our players are excited to play," Mendenhall said. "That, in and of itself, has them kind of chomping at the bit to get back to Las Vegas and to play well. None of us felt like we played to our full potential a year ago. That is a motivating factor to go back and do it at a higher level."

The NCAA allows teams to hold 15 practices leading up to bowl games and the Cougars plan to practice every day, except on Sundays, of course, before the Las Vegas Bowl. "We haven't practiced as many days in the past as what we are going to now," Mendenhall said. "With some turnover at key positions for our team, we like the idea of some younger player development, and some looking forward as well as tuning up our more experienced players, so more practices in preparation for the bowl game than what we have done in past years."

Defensive lineman Jan Jorgensen explained why the feeling this year is different from 2008.