Speaker 1: It's time to celebrate the previous team sport known to man,
where modern day gladiators collide for all the glory on
the Gridye, let's talk some college football on Cougar Sports
with Ben Cridle.
Speaker 2: Love the Maxum Sports twelve three nine ninety eight point
three e SPN the Fan. I'm then for the broadcasting
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time for little college football break down with a former
b YU Great Super Bowl champion and it's going to
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believe me, check out their Google reviews. Today, let's get
out to the hotline and welcome in former bo great
Super Bowl champion. We got Brady Papinga on the line.
Beat Pop. How you living?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's up buddy in the driver's seat. It's very nice.
Speaker 2: It's tremendous. Man. You you you were part of some
good football teams in your career. You're looking at this
BYU football team and and uh, you know it's got
to be one of the best in BYU football history,
right going ten to one through these games.
Speaker 3: It's the best, no question, it's the best. It's been
the best from the from my I mean, I told
you talent wise, at least when you talk just raw talent,
there has been a more talented from a to Z
team too deep than we than we've ever seen a
BAU that makes sense. We can pay guys, you know,
we we have an administration that knows how to budget
and stay within the bounds of the budget to where
we have casts that can you know, we can acquire talent.
And then on top of that, you have a coaching
staff that can take already existing talent, which is either
through walk ons or scholarship players that come back from missions,
draft and arcuse me, draft, you know, get them in
there and develop them. They all termine the pros is
draft and develop, which I saw firsthand with the Green
mid Packers as I was a draft and developed prospect
and saw others do the same thing. And so it's
a it's a great time and be what you sports.
I mean, this is it, this is we're look man.
The mentality used to be, like even when I played,
the mentality was we were always the underdogs, Like I
always knew like we didn't have the firepower, we didn't
have the guys that Notre Dame had, USC had those guys.
But we always taught like just like in years past,
to b why you hey, if we can just pull
it all together one game, we could maybe beat these guys.
You know. That was the mentality. Now the mentality is different.
I hope everybody understands that we have guys from top
to bottom. We could go into anywhere, Ohio, State, Notre Dame,
name a place, we can go there and compete, and
we are going to have just as good of talent
as they are. So now it's not any more about
talent like you used to be, and hopefully we just
have it all come together and we dominate, like against
I don't know if you were at that game, but
the first game ever played in at and T Stadium, Oklahoma,
the YU we were not anywhere close to talented as Oklahoma.
I never forget it because after we beat Oklahoma, you know,
all the scouts come up to me and I've shared
the story. That's probably my fourth time sharing it on
the air. I'm i shared again and they come up
to me, and Josh Snyder was one of them, who's
the current general manager of the Chattle Seahawks. He's like, ready,
who should we look out for? Who? Man, you guys
must haven't got And I'm like, man, I you know,
I'm always brutally honest, and so I'm just thinking, like,
who you really a pro prospect? And I was like,
I don't know. I was like, You're just gonna have
to go see for yourself. Sure enough, after he comes
back he comes up to me, He's like, how did
you guys win that game? He's like, he's like, Oklahoma
was way more talented than you guys. I was like,
that's the beauty of BOU That's the magic of BYU.
So what's really potent is as long as we keep
and Clente's done a nice job of this, as long
as we keep that mentality chip on our shoulder going
out there playing with that urgency and that the mentality, Hey,
we're gonna prove that we belonged. And then you couple
that with talent. This is what you get. Ten to
one team, toughest schedule in the history of BAU football,
best team top to bottom in the history of BAU football.
This is what you get, ladies and gentlemen. And here
we are. And so we are in the upper x
lone of programs in college football, and we're gonna have
a chance to continue to prove that we get and
week out and I tell you, when we play clean
and execute, we will play with anybody in this country.
And then it's just a matter of hey, can you
make one more play or can you get on a
roll versus that opponent to then win the game. And that's,
like I said, yet to be seen when we get
into those situations. But that's how good we are. We
can beat anybody anytime, anywhere, and if we execute and
play clean discipline, don't beat ourselves. Man, we're going to
be in every single game, and we just got to
make that one more play.
Speaker 2: Brady, what did you learn about this b YU football
team heading out on the road getting a double digit
win versus Cincinnati at their place?
Speaker 3: One thing that I think Klane has talked about this,
but I've always seen and this goes back to when
I played a lot of times, guys will make mistakes,
team overall will make mistakes. But one thing that you'll
find out from the collective kind of mentality of BIU
is the guys will learn like they will take it
being okay, we're not repeating that, And that to me
was the overarching theme of this game against Cincinnati was
they said, you know what, we went out and played
a really air field game against Texas Tech. Unforced, by
the way, Now unforced in the sense not that a
Texas Tech didn't have anything to do with it, but
unforced in the sense that they weren't physically you know,
you know they didn't. Nobody knocked the botut of Parker's
hands of the punt, nobody forced any bad punts or
bad cakes. But there was the pressure there, and so
I thought our guys came empoised, composed and focused on
let's play clean and lo and behold who was the
team that ended up self destructive Cincinnati? Three miss fil goals,
horrendous fumble on the red zone, number of really boneheaded mistakes.
I thought there was a targeting callum bear actually that
the ref missed. Yeah, which was even more idiotic because
you just never, you don't ever in today's modern day football,
lower your headed any quarterback in the pocket ever. I
mean that is a risk that you're ejected, and you know,
a whole chain reaction of things happened. But when you
go and you look at this game, to me, that
that's what it came down to. We didn't beat ourselves,
which we did against Texas Deck. I'm not saying that
beats Texas Tech, but for surely if you're playing a
team in a high States game like this, this game
at Cincinnati was probably the highest States game they've ever
had in Cincinnati, because if they win, they stay in contention,
not that it's likely, but they stayed contention to making
it to the playoffs. They basically knock us out. They
play the eleven team in the country. They got big
new you know, one of those national TV you know,
highlight shows there. It's probably the most attention Cincinnati has
had it in the university in a long long time.
And that was a huge game. And for us to
go in there and stayed poised, it shows that they
learned how to handle that situation against Texas Tech. And that,
to me was what I thought was the number one
overarching game of that game was they've learned from their
mistakes and they don't repeat them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as far as NDP balls, game balls, could you
hand them out to offensively? Defensively? Special teams wise? Who
stood out to you from a personnel standpoint.
Speaker 3: Well, the whole offensive line. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna
put it this way, like the MVP was like a
player that had exceptional Well, shit, you can't even do
that because I'll tell you that the easy ones LJ.
You know, if you sure, if you're looking at the stats, like, oh,
LJ was the MVP. But I'm gonna tell you guys,
you go watch our receivers, our tight ends all across
the board. Offensive lineman, uh, you know, the the other
backs like the twenty one what's his name, Mahini Mahini ye, yeah,
Nick coming in, they blocked their tails off. Man, I'm
telling you second level, third, how many levels you need?
These guys offensive line were like, you know how we
do pursued drills on defense. They were doing that on offense.
With Bruce pursuing the ball downfield. He got hal you know,
a terrible holding call. By the way, it was not
a holding call. He just bare hugged the guy, which
everybody does that, and he blasted him and he kind
of looked, i think from an angle like he held him, but.
Speaker 2: He did not.
Speaker 3: I Mean, this was and this wasn't just like out
here their play here that This was every single play,
every single play. And the only time since Satty really
could beat us is they had, you know, they run
a three three five kind of defense. Is they had
to trick us, you know, because they were constantly slanting, blitzeeing,
overload doing this and they had to sometimes they kind
of got us and it was very rare, uh to
where they got us to block the wrong guy and
you know, one guy, the most dangerous one was free
and then he made the you know, play for no gainer,
tack for loss. So I'm talking like maybe three plays
is however many plays we had, which to me, that
was almost as impressive as just playing against the freaking
stud defensive front where you know they're going to be
all the time because you don't know whether those defenders
or Cincinnati are going to be after the snap because
that's how much movement they were doing, and man across
the board, it was like it was like a work
of art man. So I would give the game ball
to the offense for their commitment to being a running offense.
And it just like I said, it's not We're not
just talking about the line in the back. We're talking
about the line, the tight ends, the receivers and the back.
And then you know, you can't say all that without
also knowledging the exceptional performance of LJ. The guy was tough,
he was gritty. I know there was a couple of
times he was he was hearing the whispers of his
body say, dude, tap out, you're done, You've had two
one of you yards. Tap out, and he kind of
want to tap out, and then he said no. I
don't know if he was a prompted from the highline,
but he said no, and he pulled out. You know,
he said, I'm doing this, and we just stuffed it
down their throats. I mean that was to me like
exceptional performance. So but again, you don't get there without
all that exceptional blocking because then he's doing his thing
on top of the blocking, extra efforts, falling forward for
two or three yards, wearing the defense down. And that's
just that was beautiful, man. That was beautiful offensive the season,
and I cannot stop. I cannot. I can't leave it
there because one thing I have to acknowledge that I
just don't think people realize is you wouldn't believe how
many offensive coordinators would have felt, oh, we need to
do something other than to run the ball because they
know we're gonna run it. You wouldn't believe how many
coaches will outthink themselves like that. Props to Roderick because
the one thing that I've told him that maybe this
is selfish that I'm giving myself props. I don't know
the psychology behind it, but when you run the ball
and it's working, you do not stop until the defense
shows they can stop you. Yeah, and that's why we
kept running it. And I thought his patience and his
commitment and is just his diligence to his doing that
said hey, you're gonna have to stop us to then
have us shift or have us to just and they
didn't do it, and he just kept going. I mean
that to me was like awesome because, like I said,
I wouldn't. I can't tell you how many offensive coaches
or even just play callers on the defensive offense inside
of the ball will have like sweet calls that'll be
working like crazy and it's like, ooh, I'm gonna get
cute here. They're gonna think we're gonna do this. I'm
gonna do that, and it's like what are we doing.
Just do the thing that they can't stop and don't
change until they stop you. We don't care if they're pointing, hey,
that's coming here. On defense. He the blitz is here.
I remember remember we were playing Notre Dame and I
don't know if you remember the double blast, but blitz.
It was my favorite blitz when I played off the
ball back under Bronco double blast. You know, he looked
like he was doing two T and T explosion to
this big signal. And I remember it was fourth down,
and however, and Brady Quinn's back and there he's pointing
at me. He's like, I'm coming, and I yelled across,
I go, I have coming. You better bring two blockers.
I am coming. Oh you I have coming, I yelled
at him, up coming, I blitz, I come. They put
a stupid, dinky little back on me. I throw them aside,
sack Brady Quinn and the crab goes crazy and the
four we got the ball. You know what I'm saying.
So it's like Bronco did the same thing. The point
is is or what Roderick did by just sticking with
what was working and not changing and letting them either
step up or not. I thought it was huge because
there's so many, like I said so many times, rec
offensive coordinators just just changed the whole game plan because
they want to get cute.
Speaker 2: Amen to that. No, hey, uh, it's a it's a
it's a mentality. If you got to stop me and
make me change rather than trying to outthink everything and
try to out strategize saying, look, BLIU fans, they like
the strategy behind everything. They get really into. They kind
of nerd out over like, oh, we got to be
so super schematically creative because because of Lavell. Right, Leavell
did something so monumental, like sometimes you just gotta line up,
be bigger, stronger and out execute everybody and get downhill
three yards and a cloud of dust and force him
to stop you. I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but just don't think that Roderick stuff where we
line up and we just do that. He's got layers
where he's fake in the fly sweep, like that touchdown,
like you know, the touchdown to Bear, I mean he
that was a fake. Well it it was like I
skid the name of the technical term, but it's like
a read auction. But now you're incorporating the fly sweep
to Parker and everybody jumps with Parker because of what
he did to TCU last week, and all of a sudden,
you know, his influence opened up a huge gap and
there took advantage of it. So there's there's both of that,
and that's why I love about a team. It's a
combination of the creativity that I love Edwards and Mike
Hongrian and you read all those guys. You know, you
can even throw in leech that they created with the
West Coast offense and everything. It's got all that mixed
with the physical toughness. That's the sweet spot. Ladies and gentlemen,
you can do both of those, and you've got guys
to do both of those. I can tell you can
compete with anybody. And that's where we're at.
Speaker 2: Brady ppending on the line Cougar Sports, ESP and the fan, Brady,
what needs to be addressed going going into the UCF game.
It looks like Chase is a little bit deemed up.
Who knows how healthy LJ is? Bear Bochmeer took a shot.
Are you concerned about the offense being healthy heading into
the UCF game?
Speaker 3: Well, the big one is Chase, you know, because one
thing that Chase does really well is he can beat
man a man coverage. You put man to man coverage
on us, but you have to. That's what you do
when you have to stop the run. You load up
the box, put your safety on an island and you're
excuse me, your corners on an island, and then you
just let the Saints come down and support the run.
Uh with Chase he made teams pay constantly to do that.
So we need somebody else. Parker could be a guy,
Jojo could be a guy. Maybe Tiger. We need another guy.
We need one. We need one anyway that can step
up and basically say, look, if you were gonna go
single high, you were in trouble, which is like, you know,
loading the box. Uh. I don't know if we did
that very well against Cincinnati, although Cincinnati didn't do a
lot of single high kind of man and the man stuff.
They played a very conservative shout. They want to give
up the big play. But that's that's what we're gonna
have to learn it because I don't know what Chase's
deal is. I don't know if he's gonna be up
or down or in between. But but what an opportunity.
We got guys that can make plays. Though we got
death there, you know, so we can we can have guys.
Guys just got to get in their mentality that they
got to be the guy, you know, And I think
Jojo could be that guy. He's big, he's physical, that
he had a heck of a catch. He had some
drops in the last few games, but I thought he
came back nicely against Cincinnati, and so that's that's a
concern Bear getting hit. You know what, Tough it up, man, LJ.
Tough it up. This is everybody's hurt right now. Tough
it up. Let's go play, you know what I mean?
And with Bear, one one suggestion I would give him
if you ever asked me, would be here. Just if
you know you're dead in the water, just get down
and try to avoid the direct hits. You know, I
had to say that to most most quarterbacks. You'll learn
how to avoid the direct hit because because he's doing
a good job passing, knowing how to kill the play
and not give up some stupid interception or whatever. Now
he's got to take that to his running and know
when you know what, there's nothing there, just get down.
Speaker 2: Wise words Berdie papinga here on ESPN the Fan. So this, uh,
this offensive line I thought did a tremendous job. Obviously
LJ was phenomenal. I thought the play call was great.
T J would deserve a lot of credit here with
how good this offensive line has been in there bounce
back from Texas Tech. Texas Tech, that was a struggle.
I didn't get as much of a push they got
behind they're playing from behind, maybe didn't continue to want
to run the football. Eligi was a little bit dinged up, etc.
And Bear was not nearly as effective. He just wasn't
getting linear. He was maybe you know, shuffling in going
east and west. But the last two games something's changed.
This offensive line is is much better. Granted they're going
to get lesser opponents, but TCUs front was good, and
I thought since he had had some good defenders as well,
don't they CORLIONI coming back and getting into the lineup,
he was a tough move as well.
Speaker 3: Well, you gotta understand too, there's two ways to stretch
a defense. Stretching vertically, you can stretch them horizontally. One
thing that we did not do well against text Tech
that was exploited. We did not stretch them horizontally very
well at all. And I almost think it was because
we over respected. Not that you under respect, because there's
still phenomenal players their edge guys. But I thought we
were so concerned with them wrecking the game that it's
like we wanted to keep everything inside, everything vertical, and
we didn't want to stretch out the problem with that
is is stretching out of defense is one of the
most effective ways to beat size speed because instead of
it being a size speed game, when you're moving teams
or defenses horizontally, you're now daring them or challenging them
to have to move in sync, meaning every single player
then has to move horizontally at the same speed. If
there's one guy that's a step behind, that creates a
natural seam in your defense. And I don't think we
did a good enough job of at least showing that
picture against Texas Tech. We obviously did against TCU, and
we also did again Cincinnati. Again I referenced that fare
touchdown run was how that works. You just get those
linebackers thinking or somebody thinking, man, this is a fly sweed,
but well, and then they take one extra step that
creates a gap naturally. And like I said, it's not
that you're beating their speed, it's not even beating their side.
So there's a schematic element to it too that if
we get to play Texas Tech again, which I'm really
soeling confident we are, and if they win, you know,
if they got to go to West Virginia, winn which
by the way, is not going to be a guinea
I would imagine we're going to do a lot of that.
We're going to stretch them horizontally and then challenge them
again and vertically, and that that helps them on both
aspects of that. So I think there's a lot of
that going on. This last week. We were stretching teams
vertically in addition to going at them, excuse me, horizontally
in addition to go at him vertically.
Speaker 2: What are you most concerned about heading into the UCF game.
Speaker 3: I think you mentioned it is the injuries. Also looking ahead,
you know, thinking hey, this is a gimme. This is
not a gimme. UCF has got talent. I haven't done
a deep dive study on them. I will here in
a couple of hours. But like any team of the
Big twelve, they're gonna be talented. They're gonna be good
enough to beat BYU. Everybody's got players. I hope everybody
knows that everybody's got s callship, that everybody's getting paid.
So BYU is gonna have to show up, have to
just block out the noise. It's gonna be a great
day in Leveedwards State. I think it's gonna be cold,
a little snowy, that means you're gonna go want to
go stick these guys in the face. You don't want
to give them a little experience of what's it like
to play contact football and cold rigid weather it hurts
a lot more. And you're gonna have to test their toughness.
You're gonna have to bring them to a point of
discomfort that these Florida boys are gonna have to figure
out do we want this, do we really want to
go here or not? And if they do, good for
them and it's not, they're gonna have a problem. But
we gotta be willing to bring him there. And so
we got to come out and play our game. Uh.
I'd like to see some some guys step up in
the wider TV corps the to whord. Like I said,
with Chase being down, most likely I don't know. I
don't know what he's down or up, by the way,
but I'm assuming he's down if he is down, so
that they can show, Hey, if you're gonna manaus up
because you're loading the box, I am going to be
a guy that you better give help to because it's
not going to rip you apart. So I like to
see that and those are the same you know, in
the same breath. They're concerns. So there's a lot to
be concerned about this week. There's a lot, a lot
of human nature that we're gonna have to fight against.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was looking at the forecast snow on the
horizon on Friday, and it could be a cold one
all day on on Saturday, especially with the early one. Yeah,
so it'll be uh, I mean, given that it's a
day game, though it may be a little bit warmer.
I was actually hoping for like kind of an evening game,
so it's even colder.
Speaker 3: Well the one that I think getting up and going
playing a cold game, in some ways is more difficult
than having kind of the data a climate hacklimate to
the cold letter can be a little more challenging. But
either way, I mean, it doesn't matter. You're gonna have
to go hit dudes in cold weather and it's probably
ten times as more painful. So you got to you
gotta be tough. You gotta be able to handle the discomfort.
Like I said, let's bring him to a place of discoverman.
See if they're willing to.
Speaker 2: Do that, right. Butpinga here on ESPN the fan discussing
this BYU Cougar football team. If Bear's shoulder is not
one hundred, if he can't sling it like he has
been with the amount of power and velocity that he's
been able to do, you look at possibly playing McKay
Hillstead or Trayson Borgay or Emerson Goleman.
Speaker 3: It's always going to be a question of is a
banged up Bear better than a hundred percent backup quarterback situation?
You know, that's always the question. So that'd be something
that they'll have to look at in film. You know,
I'll take a look at it when they start to
practice here tomorrow and Wednesday. And it's not hard to see. You.
I thought he came back when he did have you know,
he was complaining about the shoulder on the sideline and
he looked like he had zero adverse effects, you know,
but that's you know, you got adrenaline pump into your body.
You got a lot of stuff going on there. But yeah,
it's always the question when guys are banged up, you know,
is it gonna get worse? And if it does, you know,
do we want to take that risk? In the other
part is performance is a banged up bear, is he
as effective as one hundred percent McKay or some of
these other guys, and that's something that they're going to
have to take a look at as they practice through
the week.
Speaker 2: Brady, real quick before I let you go. Cougar's in
the pros? Who stood out to you this season? Who's
you been most impressed by? Out of the group?
Speaker 3: Book is a killer man. I dude is just a
dynamic receiver, you know, and you just you just can't
cover them because everybody thinks to have him covered and
then he whips out some acrobatic catch and then the
fly suites the quarterback or excuse me, the running back
kind of plays that he excels at or just I mean,
he's not a big dude, but he runs like he's big.
You know, he's kind of converted into it. Deebo Samuel
kind of player, which you know, Deebo made that kind
of popular with the forty nine ers. But now you
got you know, Puka taking it to a whole other level.
So it's it's been fun to see his set and
in success. Like I said, the NFL dbs, I think
overall talent evaluators. Heck, when he with him going in
the sits round. Had no idea how good of an
NFL football player he is going to be. Now they
do now you know it played him a good contract.
He's getting a lot of respect. But man, he's been
fun to watch.
Speaker 2: Love it, Brady. Best way to support you what you do,
how you do it. I would love for people to
get ahold of you if they're building out a gym,
or if you're looking for gym equipment at their residence
or at their commercial space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great time too, it's getting cold. Maybe
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Speaker 2: Get into the little x's and o's with b Pop. Brady.
Always appreciate our time, man, great stuff as always, thanks
for hopping on.
Speaker 3: Always a pleasure, Brandon to go Cubes.
Speaker 2: There you go. That was Brady Papina. That segment was
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