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Welcome and the one the only representing ESPN. We got
Trevor Maddi's former BA right on the line.
Speaker 1: Trevor, how are you. I'm doing great man, how are you?
Speaker 3: I'm living the dream man? All is well in Cougar Country.
Kilanie has been extended b always going to the Big
twelve Championship. I have a few, you know, a few
gripes regarding the colle Football Playoff Committee, and maybe a
few gripes about bear Bachmeyer not not being listed as
a Freshman of the Year. Candidate, or even Kialani being
a Coach of the Year candidate nationalie. But all things considered,
I'm grateful man, and we're getting off Thanksgiving and getting
into December all as well.
Speaker 1: Brother, Yeah, I know, I hear you.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 1: There's so much good going on right now, and BYU
is in position to control their destiny end of the playoffs.
And that's good too. That's never happened before. So we're
in uncharted territory, no.
Speaker 3: Doubt about it, Trevor. As you've been evaluating BYU this
year and watching them win their way through their schedule, like,
how would you describe as BYU football team. You've check tape,
You've watched the film, You've seen the outcomes, you see
the strength of schedule, you see the FPI, you see
the strength of record. Who is this BYU Cougar football team.
Speaker 1: I think the word I'd use to describe them as
resilient because they haven't always dominated all four quarters. I mean,
I think there were four games where they trailed by
double digits and three of them they came back to win,
and including that big one against Iowa State. And so
the way this team is played when they get pushed
in the mouth, they don't wilt. And that goes to
the culture. I mean, you hear the players echoing what
the coaches defined as their culture when you talk about
unity and love and some words like love that you
don't hear from a lot of other programs, and yet
it's a real tangible thing with this BYU program. And
I think that's one of the reasons they sit it
at eleven and one and they're going to be playing
Texas Tech for the Big twelve Championship. It's that culture
that you seem manifest on the field when things aren't
going well that allows them to come back.
Speaker 3: Resilient. Sometimes when you say resilient, right, some people would
interpret that as, Hey, they're gritty, they're hardworking, they're the
Jim Rat right, They're the overachiever. They're the nice little
ball club that just doesn't have the talent to win
and win big. And so I feel like that's been
a little bit of their brand for a long time.
Maybe maybe that's been the BYU brand for a long
time since nineteen seventy two to present day, and they're
just going to have to overcome that. Eventually. They got
to start acquiring top twenty recruiting classes like they just did,
monopolizing the LDS talent, bringing in the best of the best,
and competing at a high level year and in year
out before they get the maybe the credibility of a
big time program.
Speaker 1: Right well, I think that's one of the reasons they
sit at number eleven right now with an eleven to
one record and with the stats that they have, because
I think the Committee might not be convinced yet that
BYU as a program has elevated beyond just a couple
of good seasons, and I disagree with that, and I
don't think the committee should be looking at it that way.
I know that they don't intend to, but they have
human beings on the committee, and human beings are biased,
and I think there might be just a little bit
of bias because of that. But I think BYU is
in position to be competitive as a top twelve team
and as a playoff team and maybe beyond that if
they play cleanly and if they do what they normally
do to win games, which is to say, don't make
mistakes and take advantage of the opponent's mistakes. The defense
is one of the better defenses in the nation, and
the offense is one of the most balanced offenses in
the nation. And the offense, you know, that's secondly in
the Big Twelve in the rushing yards per game, and
they are third in points scored in the Big Twelve.
And so it's not like, you know, this is a
team that is a one trick ponent. The defense is
very good of a lot of things. The offense is
very good at running and throwing the ball, and that
kind of balance is what you need to have an
eleven to one record. And so, you know, I think
the BYU program is ahead of what perception is. I
think there are a lot of fans, not just BYU fans,
but college football fans that see BYU in a positive
light but want to see more against the top teams
in the nation before they'll believe in them. But I
think BYU has already shown that they belong in that conversation,
and now I think college football as a nation needs
to catch up with where BYU has arrived.
Speaker 3: Trevor Matich on the Line, Cougar Sports, ESPN The Fan, Trevor,
a couple of things I want to I want you
to kind of help me out with here. If BYU
beats Texas, Tech. Okay, obviously they're in the Collegeotball playoff.
What happens with Tech? How far do they drop?
Speaker 1: Do you think? I don't think they drop far. I'm
certain they won't drop out of the top ten. You know.
I think the key for them will be right now,
they sit at number four, which will get them a bye,
which they will keep if they beat BYU. But if
BYU beats Tech, remember the tears here. You've got one
through four, get a bye, seven and eight get a
home playoff game, and then there's a big scramble as
to who will be nine, ten, eleven, and twelve, and
so Texas Tech I doubt would drop past the top eight.
But as you look at the teams they'd be competing
for to be in the top eight you're talking about
right now, five, six, seven or eight are Oklahoma, Ole,
miss Texas, A and M and Oregon. And I think
that you know, Oregon being number five in Oklahoma being
number eight, And I think Texas Tech right now is
seen by the committee as being better than all of
those teams. I think Texas Tech is seen by the
committee as being much more balanced than Oklahoma, both outstanding defenses.
But I think Texas Tech's offense is much better than
Oklahoma's right now. So I think if Texas Tech loses,
what will happen is they won't drop out of the playoff.
I think they won't even drop out of the top eight,
which would still give them a home playoff game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is this is a situation in which we're
kind of evaluating those that are deserving in those that
are not deserving. Joey McGuire, head coach of Texas Tech,
Brett yor Mark Big Twelve commissioner, they've openly actually attacked
Notre Dame in their resume. It seems like the committee
is purposely leaving out BYU as a candidate to be
in the top ten. And they only show like, for instance,
certain images of resumes, and they leave out BYU out
of the conversation completely. And they don't even stack up
the resume with the equivalent metrics side by side versus
the Miami's, the Notre Dames, the Oklahoma's, the Alabama's, because
that may be a little bit damning putting up put
them up next to like, Oh, people may realize, b
why you may deserve to be in the top ten
right now? Why why is the image having to be
shut photoshopped by fame there in the side by side
side of things.
Speaker 1: Well, I've heard a lot about that, and you know,
I think BYU isn't getting enough conversation. I think they
would deserve to be in the top ten, because you
need to be in the top ten in order to
be in the playoff, as in that large team right now,
because eleven and twelve will be taken by two conference
champions that will be coming in from outside the top twelve.
So right now, the top twelve eleven to twelve or
BYU and Miami, And if the playoff were today, then
both of those teams would be out in favor of
either the Sun Belt champ, the American Champ, or the
ACC champ some combination of that, and so by you
would have to be in the top ten. But I
think even if BYU loses to Texas Tech for a
second time, as long as the game is relatively competitive,
I think BYU still should be in the top ten
because their only two losses will be to a team
that's in the top four, right and so Notre Dame
can't say that, nobody else can really say that those
would be the two most excusable losses as long as
they're competitive in the second one of anybody. And then
they beat Utah at number thirteen, you know, so I
think this is this is where BYU sits right now,
or even with a loss, I think they should be
in the top ten anyway, as long as they were
competitive in that loss. Think SMU losing last year in
the ACC Championship game to Clemson, and SMU didn't drop
out of the playoff ran. So when you talk about
the well, I'm sorry I space your original question. I
wanted to set that up. You were talking about.
Speaker 3: Just the we were talking more about like the side
by side number one name was there? You go, you
attack on Notre Dame and then the side by side
imagery that it seems like they're avoiding Why they're doing that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, I hear you. I don't know that
they're avoiding it. I haven't seen I've seen the uproar
on you know, the the great missing Missing Where's BYU?
But like one of them that I saw had Miami
and Notre Dame and I think Alabama right, and they
skipped b YU. So that means that they would have
number nine, number ten and then number twelve, and they
skip number eleven, which is BYU. I don't know, because
I didn't see how it was. It was talked about
on the air, but as I looked at it, all
three of those teams are two lost teams, and they
may well have been just comparing the two loss teams
with each other. And BYU is a one loss team.
Now I think they should have or not. I don't
say they should have in their show, but I think
it is totally fair to then throw BYU in there
and say, hey, these are two lost teams. BYU is
a one loss team, and their only loss is to
the team that's ranked number four in the nation right now.
None of the other teams ranked ahead of BYU, I
don't believe have a loss to somebody. I think Oklahoma
has lost to Ole Miss, so Ole Miss is number six,
and so you know, but it's kind of rare that
any of these teams have a loss to anybody that's
ranked that high. And BYU along with Oklahoma are the
teams up here that have lost their Georgia lost to
number nine Alabama, but BYU lost to number four, right
and that's their only loss. And I think that it
would have been fair. Well, but I think it's fair
that that BYU's one loss resume be compared with everybody
that's competing for an that large bid, even if they
lose their conference championship game, And the fact that it
wasn't is something that I find I'll be curious, But
I do understand the process of television, and if they're
comparing like to like and they're comparing two lost teams
and then not including the one loss team, They've got
to draw a line somewhere. And so I'm not justifying it,
but I'm not attacking it either, because I know that,
you know, they don't always do things because they don't
like a certain team. Yeah, no, Look, this is the thing.
Speaker 3: Like obviously, I run a local ESPN show that focuses
on Boa athletics. So the questions I get from fans are, hey,
are they leaving us out because of religious bigotry? Again,
are they leaving us out because of some sort of
like non football cultural you know, differences, et cetera. Yes,
So I'll get those questions, and I've said I don't
think so, I don't think that that's the case. Would
I actually lean on you want to get your thoughts
on it, but you can you can chime in on
that and maybe validate, you know, my my assumption and
where I leaned that. But I look at what they
did last year, right with the expanded playoff, and I
think at when the dust settled, the SEC had a
big ripe. They're like, look, the best twelve teams didn't
get in because we had a few teams that should
have been in there that were better than Boise State,
better than SMU, maybe better than ASU, better than whoever else.
But those are the main ones, right, Those were the
main complaints from the SEC. They're like, we didn't get
enough of our good teams in, and you allowed SMU
to go in there and get their teeth kicked in.
They don't want to allow BYU. They feel like SMU
and by you are pretty similar to each other, and
they don't want a BYU team to just get in
off of their resume. I guess it is the resume
valid to get in, but they don't think in late November,
the way they're playing that they deserve to be and
they're not the one of the twelve best teams in
college football.
Speaker 1: Well in November, BYU says they lost the Texas Tech
has annihilated everybody, and so that's I think, you know,
the way they're playing in late November is as good
as it needs to be in order to be considered
for that large berth that they lose their second game
in that detective think they.
Speaker 3: View that YU similarly to how they view SMU, and
that what happened last year and all the complaints that
occurred after the dust settled and the product in the
College Football Playoff would lead them to believe that the resilient,
gritty b YU team can't compete in the playoff.
Speaker 1: No, well, there's one data point that is not available now,
and that is the Copper Championship game. I mean, the
thing about SMU is that, you know, they finished number
ten after losing to Clemson in the ACC Championship game.
The week before that, they were number eight, and so
the committee said that they were happy about the way
SMU came back, and they had a great second half,
especially a great fourth quarter. They just fell short, but
they looked to the committee like a playoff team.
Speaker 3: But they lost by twenty eight to Penn State, and
then Boise State lost. Big was dominated by Penn State.
They don't want that, it seems no.
Speaker 1: But the thing is they're not supposed to take that
into consideration. They're supposed to look at the teams as
they are right now and rank them as they are
right now, and not speculate who might win on a
neutral field or in a home or away game in
the first round or anything like that. They're not supposed
to look at that, and so I hope that they don't.
But I think last year, the fact that SNU only
dropped from eight to ten and still made the playoff
is good for other teams that are trying to get
in that large bid that might lose their conference championship game.
I don't think that you should be penalized for losing
it a BYU loses to Texas Tech or the other
way around. I think that the winner of the conference
championship game could get credit as a data point in
the committee's final evaluations. The loser of a conference championship
game it should be as if they ever played the
game at all, and they shouldn't be penalized for that.
And no team that did not play in the conference
championship game should be should get an advantage over a
team that lost a conference championship game. I think that's
really important. The problem for BYU now is that they're
sitting there at number eleven, So how in the world
are they going to move up? I mean, if Alabama
gets completely smoked at number nine in the SEC championship game,
then BYU could move up. They've got a problem with
Miami though, behind them, who beat Notre Dame, And the
committee's got a problem because they're getting a lot of
grief for having Notre Dame ahead of Miami. Notre Dame
in the playoff right now. Miami out of the playoff
right now, even though Miami beat the Irish had to
head and BYU may end up being a casualty of
the committee trying to reconcile that. But in the meantime,
you know, BYU at number eleven, if they lose to
Texas Tech, just the way it stacked, probably won't be
in the playoff even if Alabama loses, And so that's unfortunate,
and that's why I think BYU should be ranked higher
than they are right now. It would put them in
a better position to get in that large bid even
if they lost the Big twelve championship game. And I
think they deserve to be in that position. But the
reality of the current situation, right or wrong, is that
BYU need this win against Texas Tech in order to
get in. Yep, no doubt about it.
Speaker 3: How do you see this game playing out? How do
you what's going to change right in this typical or
this scenario obviously neutral field. I'm hoping it's fifty to fifty.
I think it will be with fans of Tech and
BYU alike. You don't have the elements that were maybe
impactful for against BYU. They didn't play all that well
in those elements with the win, the muff punts, shanked punts,
just the offense was a little bit overly conserving a
lot of Max Pro two man routes. They really didn't
let their guys get out in space or not a
whole lot of quick game, not a lot of screen game.
How do you see this game playing out?
Speaker 1: Well? I see, I see a lot of adjustments for
BYU's offense. I mean, first of all, the defense was
was borderline magnificent. I mean they didn't get any takeaways,
but other than that, I thought they were great. Texas
Tech only scored two touchdowns on offense, five field goals,
and three of those five field goals were when a
BYU turnover gave Tech the ball in the BYU red zone,
and BYU stopped them all three times. And so I
think that's a big part of it. And as you
look at some of the some of the metrics of
it Texas Tech for the season, their red zone touchdown
percentage on offenses like in the eighties, and BYU's defense
in stopping touchdowns in the red zone is like tenth
in the nation and so BYU carries that advantage if
they're able to keep it up. So we start there.
You know, Tech score twenty nine points against BYU. They
averaged forty three on the season. So you've got to
think that BYU's defense doesn't need to change a whole lot,
just be ready for adjustment. Just the offense that needs
to adjust. And everything that you mentioned then, I think
is important because every defense has a weakness, you just
have to find it. You really need twelve guys on
the field on defense in order to cover everything well,
otherwise you've got a compromise on defense. And I think
one of the things that well, there are a number
of things that BYU can do to adjust. I mean,
one of the things that Texas Tech did was they
played a lot of zone and they came flying downhill
against the runner, against the short passes, and that exposes
them a little bit farther downfield, right, And I think
that they also packed in the defense in terms of
interior run. You know, they had a couple of linebackers
that almost acted like spies, although I think they were
just in zone coverage, but they just played up and close. Well,
guess what that does. That creates more space on the outside.
They squeezed the contain guys down inside against the run,
and you can exploit outside if you can get there,
and if you can get blockers out in front. Because
Texas Tech is so fast, you're not going to just
outrun them all the time to get to the perimeter.
But BHYU puts blockers out there all the time. One
of the ways is what you mentioned gets offensive linemen
out there on screens. But I think counters will be important.
In other words, you know, b why you needs to
run screens and let's say just the bubble screen. Well,
in the first game, Texas Tech attack those downhill fast
and hard. Well, so what do you do with that,
you run a fake bubble and a go route. One
of the blocking receivers starts to block that, he takes
off down the field. That'll loosen up those guys pretty quick, right.
And also just in terms of execution, there's the number
of things that Bear can do better that he can
do that we know he can do. You know, one
of them is to hit those one on one routes
up the sideline. He had one, i think at the
third quarter where Chase Roberts was running a vertical route
on the right sideline and he left a big alley
between himself and the sideline and the defender was right
inside of him in man coverage or match his own.
Either way, it was manned by the time they got
down there, and Bear threw the ball up and on
top of the two guys and it was broken up. Well,
if you'd thrown that ball a little bit farther outside
and locked it and dropped it down into the alley,
then Chase adjusts into the alley away from the defender,
catches the ball, and for all the great speed and
everything else that Texas Tech's defense has up front, you've
got a one on one matchup on the outside where
you've got a tall YU receiver at a quarterback that's
good at dropping those balls accurately. He just didn't on
that play, and so I think they'll you'll see more
of that opportunity when Texas Tech comes up and tries
to gum everything up at the line and BYU just
needs to execute. But those opportunities are there, and I
think that they'll they'll attack more in places like that
and have more counters so they could take advantage of
the aggression of the Red Raider defense.
Speaker 3: Last thing before I let you go, Trevor, appreciate you
spending some time with us, pontificating and giving us wisdom,
football wisdom that only you can give. Kilane signed man.
He's extended. We're hoping he is the Polynesian level. He's
been here for ten years. We hope it's another ten
to fifteen more years, right. I don't know how I'm
trying to think of how old Lavell was. Was he
seventy before he retired or was he in that sixty
five range. Do you recall when he retired?
Speaker 1: I don't recall, but he was there long enough to
have been there a long.
Speaker 3: Time, almost thirty years he was there coaching the Kougs.
So what does the future look like for BYU? Do
you think are they like, what's the ceiling and what's
the floor of BYU football? Do you think with all
the momentum that they have right now from your perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, first of all, with coach O'take resigning, I
think that's brilliant. I mean, there's not that many people
that qualify to be a head coach at b YU,
and the way his personality is in his style of
mentoring appeals to the kind of player that's attracted to BYU,
and those players respond to his style. And I think
he's a good combination of Lavell, who is quiet, and
then himself who's firing, and he's got both of those
and I think the players love it. I think he's
as good a fit, as perfect a fit of coach
to university as I can never remember seeing. So I
think it's good for both sides. And I think that
where they stand now is with the possibility of Klonie
Stake doing what you said, being having a career similar
to Lavell, and that he's there for several decades. And
if he does that, I think he'll win a lot
of games, the program will be very good, but he'll
have a chance, like Lavell, to really impact a lot
of lives. And you know, you talk about value and price,
those are two different things. So I'm glad that they
were able to come together on that combination of value
and price in order in terms of contract in order
to keep him there. But overall, I think the ceiling
is as high as it was with Lavell. You know,
I mean, have a consistently outstanding, nationally relevant program, and
when you're healthy and you have a great quarterback, then
make a run for the top of college football. And
Lavelle got there once and he was relevant most of
the time, and I think that's what they can do.
I can see down the road as long as coach
Satake and the administration remained aligned in their vision for
where the program needs to go and how to support it,
because there's a lot that has to stay alike in
order for him to be there for a decade or
two more. But I can envision Kilani Satake field at
Lavell Edwards Stadium. I think he has the ability to
have that kind of an impact on this program, and
I would love to see it, and I'm glad they're
staying in the course so that it has a chance
to happen.
Speaker 3: Love it, Trevor. Best way to support you. What you do,
how you do it for all of our listeners, brother.
Speaker 1: Uh well on X at team MATTACH M A T
I c H. I took a bit of a hiatus,
but I'm back on it now and looking forward to
talking about what's going on here with the rest of
the College Football Championships.
Speaker 3: Yes, you're gonna be Are you going to be live
on Saturday covering it all? What's the schedule for you
there at ESPN.
Speaker 1: On Saturday, No, because there's there's not enough games. But
on Sunday, I'll be on the ESPN Radio Selection Show,
So that's noon Eastern, and we'll be talking about what
happened to BYU and whether it was reasonable or whether
it was totally wrong. So we will be talking about
b YU then. So for all the people who are
dissatisfied with the amount of attention to the Cougars in
this process, there will be plenty of attention on Sunday.
Speaker 3: All right, appreciate you, Trevor. Thanks for hopping on today.
I was a blessing. I was a pleasure talking.
Speaker 1: Ball with you. Appreciate the bad Thank you. There you go.
Speaker 3: That's Trevor Maddich, Ladies and gentlemen, And that segment was
brought to you by a little keeping up with the
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Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: Great catching up obviously with Trevor Matich. Uh and UH,
I want you to chime in on my poll today.
Which group, like you know, like there's a lot of
haters out there, there's a lot of disrespect out there.
I'm not a I'm not a full blown maybe conspiracy
theorist on everything, but I had become more for conspiracy
theorists twenty twenty. Uh, which group most wants b YU
football pushed into irrelevance. Number one, you tough fan base,
most definitely, they want to see it all crumble. Number
two the self righteous segment of the LDS Latterday Saints
ry Mormons who think major athletics are are not to
be invested in. You can't put any money into it,
it's a waste of time. Does not build up the kingdom,
the colleg football establishment, the colle football Playoff comtee, the
blue bloods of the media networks, those that are protecting
the old order, the good old boys club. They don't
want any of this new money, any of this new
found success to get in and infiltrate their college football cabal,
the monopoly, the oligopoly. And then you just have the
general anti BOU, anti LDS haters. Which one is winning
this poll, it's actually number three. Everyone's out to get
the colle Football Playoff Committee and the college football cabal
right now. They don't want anything to do with BYU.
Apparently that's what the kugarnation is film. But number two
is the Utah fanbase coming in with thirty seven percent
of the votes, by the way, so little poll of
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go to break, don't go anywhere more to get to
on your Utah ESPN Radio network. This is Cougar Sports
on one of three to nine ninety eight point three
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