WHAT THE BYU football team needs is . . . New Mexico.
Mired in their worst losing streak in 16 seasons, the Cougars, with four losses in a row, could stand a trip to Albuquerque. Not only has Brigham Young lost only three times to New Mexico in the last 36 years, it has also, over the seasons, used the Lobos as a kind of antidote for losing streaks.In the LaVell Edwards era (1972-), there have been two previous four-game losing streaks, once in 1973 and again in 1974-75. Both streaks were snapped by games - and wins - against New Mexico. Also, in 1968, when the Cougars were on a seven-loss slide - their longest of the modern era - they ended it abruptly with a 35-6 win at New Mexico.
And in 1955-56, when the Cougars went 14 games without a win - their longest stretch of futility in history - they stopped the bleeding at homecoming in Provo with a 33-12 over the Lobos.
The bad news for the Cougars: They don't play New Mexico until the eighth game of the season.ONE-ARMED MAN: Instead of rest and relaxation in Albuquerque, the next stop for BYU is at fifth-ranked Penn State, where the Nittany Lions are reveling in their 81-0 opening-game win over Cincinnati.
Cincinnati may go on and recover from the 81-point outburst, but Tim Durant, a Penn State junior from Trumbull, Conn., may not. Durant is the school's mascot. He dresses in a lion costume for the games and, by tradition, does pushups after every Penn State score - one for each point. One-handed pushups.
Against Cincinnati, Durant did slightly over 300 pushups. He might have done even more - add it up, and the grand total should have been 543 - but he was in the newly completed upper deck at Beaver Stadium for much of the second half, presumably hiding out.
The game-time temperature was over 80 degrees, with high humidity. "I was pretty parched," Durant told local reporters after the game. "Thank goodness for water breaks."week's Los Angeles Times, No. 2-ranked Miami will be ready for No. 10 University of Houston and its no-huddle offense when they play in the Orange Bowl this Saturday.
Said Miami defensive coordinator Sonny Lubick, "They don't get in the huddle, but they mill around and look to see what you're doing, check to see how you're lining up. If they mill around, we're going to mill around. When the play clock gets to about 10 seconds, everybody starts running to their position.
"You'll see a lot of milling around. Our scout team should be happy this week - they'll just mill around. That's what they do best."SUMMER OPTION: Utah's football team entertains Air Force this week, and not lost on Ute coach Ron McBride is the Falcons' propensity for scoring points against the Utes. In the past six years against Utah, Air Force has scored an average of 47 points with its option offense, including last season's 52-21 win.
"I don't know what happened the other five years," says McBride, now in his second season. "But I know last year we were terrible. We did a very poor job. We were embarrassed."
To that end, McBride spent much of the summer researching ways to stop the option. He flew in several experts as consultants - but says he'd rather not say who they are, "so Air Force won't know whose package we'll be patterning ourselves after."
"If you're going to do well in the WAC, you've got to be able to beat Air Force," says McBride. "We've spent quite a bit of time working on defending the option. Whether we spent enough time, Air Force will probably let us know Saturday."ADD BYU-PENN STATE: Cincinnati Coach Tim Murphy had nothing but praise for the Nittany Lions. "Those 81 points - that wasn't Joe (Paterno) running it up - that was my fault," he said. "This was as fine a team as we've played since I've been here, and we've played Florida State and Miami."QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Cecil Gray, an offensive lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles, on the team's quarterback change from Randall Cunningham to Jim McMahon after Cunningham injured his knee: "Randall was our meal ticket before. Jim's our meal ticket now. Same meal, different ticket."