Speaker 1: When Ben critalism breaking down Kobe some amounts of film
on his beloved Cougar football team.
Speaker 2: He's talking Cougar sports and he's.
Speaker 1: Doing it right here on one O three nine at
ninety eight three e ESPN, No Fan.
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our mind, body and soul needs. We're gonna welcome to
a former Byu Cougar quarterback to break down his thoughts
on this rivalry game. Coming up here momentarily, but let
me level set for you. Byu is not a favorite
in this game. Vegas kay has Utah is a three
and a half point favorite. The over under a set
at forty nine and a half. It's a kickoff of
six pm on Box Big Noon Kickoff was here earlier
today to feature the rivalry game. This is a rivalry
game unlike any other, and I think the nation is
being put on notice as to the volatility and the
violence that occurs in this game in between fans and
in between the lines on the gridiron. It's a sold
out crowd tonight, over sixty four thousand strong will converge
on Lavell Edwards Stadium and it's gonna be glorious.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be fantastic.
Speaker 1: Kyle Whittingham is eleven and five in this rivalry game. Okay,
he has dominated this rivalry game. I think his legacy
is built off of this rivalry games, and he has
lost two straight now. In this rivalry game, which Kilani
is a big part of. BYU under Kalani is two
to four in the rivalry game. ESPN Analytics giving BYU
a slight favorite in this game. Is a slight favorite
in this game fifty one percent chance of victory, hopefully
for the Cougars. The injury report Marcus McKenzie on BYU side,
Jojo Phillips, Shay Bryan Strascioni Moa, Tommy Prash's Raider de Mooney,
and Nissi Percell all may not be playing.
Speaker 3: ANISI is probable, though.
Speaker 1: The Utah injury report Rabbit Evans, Nate Richie, Dadrid Zipper Hunter, Andrews,
Josh Sovereign, Paul Fitzgerald, Gradium Morecco, and Isaiah Garcia all
out this game. Okay, so that's your level set for
all you Cougar fans and Cougar country. Let's welcome in
Steve Klements, former b YU quarterback, to break down this game.
Speaker 3: Steve, how that g are you, buddy?
Speaker 2: I'm good man, How are you good?
Speaker 3: Which game?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: It must intrigued by thus far in the college football world.
Speaker 2: I'm locked into the I've been locked into this one
since the day after we won. We beat them up
there last year, so oh yeah, I'm locked into this one. Dude, Dude,
it's a.
Speaker 3: It's a great game.
Speaker 1: Uh BYU is one of eleven FBS teams remaining that
are still undefeated. Okay, they were fantastic last year, they're
fantastic this year.
Speaker 3: Texas Tech.
Speaker 1: UH is currently playing ASU. They may fall to UH
to ASU today. We'll see how that plays out. College
football cannibalism at it's finest. But how do you see
this game playing out today under the lights of level
by U versus Utah Steep?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, probably just like anyone else, it's gonna
be it'll be close. It's you know, if you look
at it, you look at the two staffs, where Klanna
came from, where a Rod came from. It's it's almost
like Utah is playing themselves to a point, both offensively
and defensively. J Hill defensive or Utah product a Rod
you know under Kyle obviously Klannie and so you know,
I see it as like a twenty three to twenty
one game for the Y And then I don't think
I think there's gonna be a turnover. I think Utah
is gonna get the last position. There's gonna be a turnover.
Dam piers are either gonna throw it or put it
on the ground. Throw it to us and need to
put it on the ground. I don't think they have
a chance to kick the fil so I think we
run out of the clock and we went twenty three
twenty one. But I will say this, I wouldn't be
surprised if because of our defense and I don't think
offensively they're not the greatest offensive team, I could see
us winning by ten to eleven points, double digits. I
wouldn't be shocked. I don't think it's gonna be like that.
I think it's gonna be a close scoring game, and
I think it's gonna be what's the over forty.
Speaker 3: Nine and a half?
Speaker 2: I think it'll be under that, I think, but it's
gonna be fun. I remember a couple of years ago
when I came.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what's interesting. Everyone's like, okay, Vegas knows. Okay,
let's say Vegas.
Speaker 3: Was like forty nine and a half. Everyone's picking the
under right now.
Speaker 1: But it opened at forty seven and a half at
a lot of betters out there, and that's what Vegas
is in the game of betting. Sure, they're picking the
over at forty seven and a half in the opening
and and money could still be moving towards the over.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what do they know that we don't know?
Speaker 2: Sure, and I think you can have something where we
get hot. We get hot in the second half, we
get hot in the second quarter, and we string on
you know, a couple of touchdowns or ten points in
a row. Well, we get a turnover and capitalize on it,
whether it's pick six or scoop and school or something
like that, and then we capitalize offensively. I wouldn't be surprised.
I mean, it's you know, I tell my you know,
I'm from the great state of Texas, and I tell
my friends all the time. I'm telling you, you know,
you have Kyle Field down Texas A and M, and
then you have the hedges, and you have you know,
football in the South, which is the predominant religion now there.
Oh yeah, but goodness gracious, on a Saturday nine in Provo, Utah, dude,
there's only sixty five, sixty six, sixty seven thousand people,
but it sounds like one hundred and sixty seven thousand people.
I remember a couple of years ago the only time,
and I've told my kids that are with me and
my wife, I said, look, this is what's gonna happen.
Don't You'll know when it's halftime, when you sit down,
Like that's the only time you're gonna sit down is halftime.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: You're gonna stand up the whole time. You have been yelling,
screaming the whole time. And it's just it's a great
atmosphere and it's a great rivalry. And you know what
if it's a little bit nasty. You know, I'm still
old school. I think it's I think it's fine, Like
as long as we don't get personal or religious, dude,
it's it's fine.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: Like, I don't know, I'm looking forward to it. I'm
jacked up.
Speaker 1: You know. I've always said the f B yu chance,
I'm perfectly fine.
Speaker 3: We just don't die.
Speaker 1: Don't convert it into the a religious thing. But that's
what I said, which happened.
Speaker 2: Heard that last year.
Speaker 1: The rivalry gave to me in in many regard is
church versus state. We call it the holy war for
a reason because there's a religious aspect.
Speaker 3: How about church versus state. There's a little bit of
that too.
Speaker 1: It's secularism, you know, the state school versus the private
sure religious school.
Speaker 2: Sure, but it's only church state because of the private
religious Because goodness gracious. Yeah, there's probably a lot more
missionaries to come from Yu than Utah. But they have
their fair share. They got their fair share of latter
day station at the school up north. We'll call it. Yes.
Speaker 1: Indeed, BYU is ranked, Utah is ranked. This is only
the fourth time in Holy War history that both teams
are ranked.
Speaker 3: They are competing for.
Speaker 1: This is somewhat a playing game for the Big twelve championship.
Some people are saying there are CFP implications on the line.
Is this the biggest rivalry game in BYU Utah history?
Speaker 2: I think it's got to be right up there because
of what you just stated, and I think with and
I think K have probably talked about that that it's
it's bigger than just the team down south against the
team up north. You know, yeah, it's way bigger than that.
Because again, like you talked about the implications going forward
that now you're going to get into the top fifteen,
top ten if one of the two or winning one
of the two wins. And you're right there in discussion
with everybody else the Ohio States and Indiana's which is insane,
and we're talking about Indiana.
Speaker 3: As a football school man. It's a crazy year or two.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, I think you know, the focus is
going to be there's such more of a bigger picture
than it is a just a robbery, you know. And
I think it's something that both coaches they've been to,
they've done this, they understand and the team, both teams
are going to play their butts off, but I think
the team up north comes up a little short at
the end.
Speaker 1: So Steve, you got you were You were thrown under
the bus a bit on social media, and it's our
fault here at ESPN the fan in fault camp. I'll
take the blame fault camp. You hopped onto our show.
You had just been down at BYU's practice and we
were talking about Bear Bachmeyer and you said, look, bear
Bachmeyer reminds me of a better throwing, more accurate Tim Tebow.
And Utah fans had a heyday with it. They're like,
oh my gosh, I can't believe Steve Klements would say that, okay,
And what's funny is now everyone's on board after watching
bear Bachmeyer for the last six seven weeks, AND's like,
oh my gosh, the six foot two, two hundred and
thirty five pounds running quarterback that can also throw a
little bit better than Tim at least in his freshman year,
is looking like Tim Tebow.
Speaker 3: Check this out, Brady Quinn.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, Brady Quinn's a part of Big Neon Kickoff. Brady,
when one of the best college football quarterbacks over the
last thirty years played in the NFL. This is what
he had to say in in his evaluation of bear Bachmeier.
I mean, bart just got here what he and it's
really tough playing as a true fresh fight.
Speaker 3: I'm not hearing that you're trying to manage class. I
don't hear it. Okay, we'll get it, we'll get it
dialed in. But you know where I'm getting with this.
You know where I'm going with this.
Speaker 2: Sure, and and and I completely understand the team up
North coming after a comment like that, I understand that
I wasn't saying Obviously, I wasn't saying he's he should
be up for the Heisman trophy, wasn't It wasn't the team.
That's what you said at the plaque of the famous
speech that he gave against whoever they were playing the SEC.
It was just on the field performance and their styles
are very similar. And and yeah, of course something to
go out there gonna because Tim Tebow, why he's he's
a trophy let her and I'm I mean, he threw
it fifty times. What does he know? I've been around
the game a little bit, and so like, uh.
Speaker 1: Sean Clements wasn't all American, all American ladies and gentleman, and.
Speaker 2: So I get that, but yeah, I'm sticking to it.
I just told somebody the other day away, what do
you think about Bears? Like he's a better throwing Tim Tebow?
Bear to throwing right handed Tim Tebow, I'll qualify he's.
Speaker 3: A right handed Tim Tebow.
Speaker 2: That's the only thing that that worries me in this,
really this gauntlet of Big twelve play is can he
sustain the hits that he's in heavily gonna take not
from a Portland state, I mean, but you see.
Speaker 3: His lower happiness. He's built like a centaur, just like just.
Speaker 2: LJ freaking garbage dumpster. You know, holy crap, dude. Anyway, Yeah,
the six twenty No, no, I don't know. No, maybe
his sophomore year in high school. While he's two twenty, but.
Speaker 1: The last time he was twenty was his sophomore season
in high school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Thattman is not two hundred and twenty pounds.
Speaker 1: He's two thirty five, but he's almost two forty.
Speaker 2: He's fun to watch, and I'm glad that that a
Rod has enough in the pantries where he can go, Okay,
I've got bear, so I can take this out of
the pantry and cook this type of meal based on
the talent that he has here in Provo, and so
he's been able to do that very successfully. Yep, we're
we haven't played. I mean, it's been red velvet cupcakes.
It's been chocolate chip cupcakes the first five or so game.
I get all that, but you know, at the end
of the day, you have to run the ball, you
have to play good defense, and you got to have
a solid special team. You really do. I mean, yeah,
Mike Leach was great, but he never won the big
games because all they did was throw the ball. All
he did was you don't throw the ball, and they
struggled in the big games. And you have to be
able to run the ball in these big games, especially
these rivalry games. And it's just it's something that you know,
both teams have a good running attack. I mean, I
think Utah's ranked first in the conference b all you
might be second or second and third or something like that.
And you look at the tail of the tape and
they're very evenly matched as far as the running game.
But it's important. I mean, winning hands their top fifteen
program every freaking year because they play great defense and
they control the ball on offense by running the football
and the recipe works. And that's now what BYU's doing.
The freshman quarterback and they put him in a position.
They don't think he he has to do everything to
win the game.
Speaker 3: They don't.
Speaker 2: I don't care about the management part, like the game management.
Get a carterway. He's just a game manager. Okay, so
what does he win? I don't really care if he
managed it? What does that mean? Okay? Good, that's fine. Good, Yes,
manages the game.
Speaker 1: Okay, Look, he had to run the ball twenty two
times versus U of A in order to win. Now
that is an outlier is a wet game, as a
wild one down in Tucson with a store and delay,
they end up they end up running him twenty two times,
and fifteen of those came in the fourth quarter and
ot to.
Speaker 3: Win the game.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you got to run the ball with your quarterback
to win football games.
Speaker 3: You do.
Speaker 2: And then the day they won the game, yep, did
you win? Did you lose? And if you win, being
a coach, former coach, you win. It's a player's fault.
You lose. His coach is wrong, you know. And so
and they won, and yeah, everybody's gonna say, oh, that's
because of bearing, because of the Well.
Speaker 3: Check these stats out real quick.
Speaker 1: So ESPN SP plus SP plus is a predictive efficiency rating,
Okay that I leaning to. I think it's an accurate
depiction of who these teams are overall thus far this season,
Utah sixteenth in the country per SP plus, BYU's twenty third. Okay,
but look at how the ratings play out. Utah's thirty
third in offense, six in defense, and then.
Speaker 3: Forty eighth in special teams.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you got thirty three six and forty eight
BYU is fortieth on offense fifteenth on defense and six
on special teams. Last year, BYU won on a kickoff
return in a game winning field goal.
Speaker 3: They're special teams in it.
Speaker 1: Traditionally in this rivalry under Kyle Wittingham, you could say
that there were a couple things trench warfare. They won
the trench back, but then they also won special teams.
We're seeing an inverse. Now b YU is competitive in
the trench warfare game. They may be just as good
in the trench warfare game, and their special teams unit's
better than Utah's. I think that's the that's the change
in the rivalry, even though they're very congluent, symmetric almost
in statistics this season, Like, that's where b Y is
better or at least equivalent and could have an edge
in this competition tonight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's why they say you have to be
really good in all three phases.
Speaker 3: Not just.
Speaker 1: But we but we tend to focus on offense or
defense and never we neglect the special teams.
Speaker 2: Well, sure we do, because that's the sexy thing to
look at. It's offense or defense or special team like
kickers and you know they're weird and you know all
that stuff. But my gosh, they they win games, and
they're they're they're only famous or infamous. There's no middle ground.
Yes for kickers, you know, they're the goat or the hero,
you know, and not goat in a good sounds getting
a goat in a bad tens. But but yeah, it's
gonna come down to that. You're right, it's gonna come
down to that here in a couple hours.
Speaker 3: Well, kickoff here in the next couple hours.
Speaker 1: It's four forty one here along the lost at front
BYU fans, Utah fans converging on Lavelle Edwards Stadium. It's
a sold out crowd and it's gonna be a lively
when we need the twelfth Man to show up. How
disruptive do you think the Royal Army and the roar
of the Cougars will be at Levelle Edwards Stadium tonight?
Do we see some false starts? Do we see a
little bit of disruption in that communication between Devin dan Pierre.
Much is made of Bear Bachmeyer playing in this first
rivalry game. What about Devin Dampierre. He's never played in
an environment like this, He's never played on the road
versus a rival sixty five thousand fans strong yelling at them.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and people don't talk about that. You talk about
the home team, and they're the ones that have the pressure.
Bear has all the pressure because he's the freshman and
he's never dealt with this robbery game before. But you
know what, none of these kids, I said kids because
I'm old, but none of these kids have experienced a
robbery where they're both ranked. They weren't both ranked last
year when we played each other, you know. So it
could be said that everybody this is their first experience
in this game, in this situation with the States as
high as they are, not just in the conference, but
on the national on the national setting, in the national
picture of CFP and the playoffs. So I think that's
a wash. You know, you're gonna have to rely on
your your training, But yeah, I think there will be disruption.
There better be some freaking disruption on the on the
other sidelines.
Speaker 1: Steve Clement's former by U quarterback shiming in and pontificating
on our airwaves. Great to catch up with you. It
sounds like you're you're predicting a BYU. W. It's gonna
be a close one, And I appreciate.
Speaker 3: You joining me today.
Speaker 2: You bet man that segments.
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Also Big Cougarota Royal Army Brand dot Com. Attorney's Matt Romrell,
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