Victory and Prediction

What a great night!

First off, we won our flag football game 27-7.  I'm pretty excited about it.  I think I started talking about it too much, because my friend Sarah finally told me: "Paul, I think you just need to get over it."  She's probably right, but I have so much fun playing the games!  I find myself always looking forward to the next game and I just have a blast playing.  That means our team is now 3-1 for the season.

I had a decent game.  In the first half, I had 1 catch on 2 targets for about 20 yards.  I was struggling on defense finding my rhythm and figuring out how to best defend the middle, short passes since I was playing middle linebacker.  The second half, I was able to really step up my defense and had a couple of pass breakups with some good tackles that prevented first downs.  It was a lot of fun.

The bad news was I tweaked my ankle and it really hurts right now.  I have a frisbee game at noon tomorrow and I'm planning on playing with an ankle brace.  We'll see how that goes.

Tomorrow BYU will play 4th ranked TCU.  TCU has the #1 defense in the nation and the 8th best offense in the nation.  It's going to be a HUGE challenge for an unusually quiet offense plagued by dropped passes, turnovers, and a true freshman quarterback.  However, I think BYU has it in them to beat TCU.  Here are my three keys to tomorrow's game that will allow BYU to make what would be the biggest upset in BYU's history:

1. Be the underdog: If BYU can have an underdog mentality with a chip on its shoulder, we can blindside TCU.  TCU coach Gary Patterson is saying all the right things about not getting cocky before playing BYU, but you know that TCU is getting a bigger head with every single win.  This is reminiscent of the 2006 game when we stunned a 17th ranked TCU at their stadium.  We need to not be afraid and really believe that we can win this.

2. Have long offense drives: I think time of possession will be huge in this game.  Last week, BYU had the ball for 45 minutes of the 60 minute game.  Because of that, BYU's defense was able to stay fresh, excited, and sharp.  If we can keep our offense on the field for a long time by utilizing the run (hopefully more with Kariya and Juice Quezada rather than DiLuigi!), we will do better defensively and offensively

3. Force Turnovers: In order for BYU to have a chance, the defense HAS to cause several turnovers.  They might even need to score for the team to win.  Either way, the defense will have a huge role in throwing this team off.  If we can cause turnovers, TCU will get thrown off balance.  I think part of creating turnovers will be pressuring QB Andy Dalton.

With that said, my incredibly optimistic and almost ludicrous prediction is:  BYU 26  TCU 24

Let's get it done Cougars!