Tanner Mangum’s had a season’s worth of excitement in a month worth of play.
Last Saturday, he played a big part in BYU blowing out a heavy cloud of melancholy after the Cougars digested the worst offensive performance in 40 years at Michigan. On Friday, the Cougars defeated defensive-minded UConn 30-13.
It would have been nice if Mangum and company did it with a blowtorch, exploding with points against UConn in LaVell Edwards Stadium. The Cougars certainly had enough big plays. But points were scarce until a 20-point fourth quarter.
Mangum had career highs in completions and passing yards against the Huskies. He also threw two interceptions. It was a hard hat and work pail kind of night.
With BYU holding onto a narrow 13-10 lead with 12:11 in the fourth quarter, it took a major assist from his brothers on defense to cash in on the night.
With UConn with the ball on their own 26, Kai Nacua came at UConn’s quarterback Bryant Shirreffs on a third-down safety blitz. Nacua hit Shirreffs and began to bring down the North Carolina State transfer. Shirreffs tried a last-ditch pass to avoid a sack and threw up a wounded duck straight into the hands of 6-foot-7 defensive end Bronson Kaufusi, who returned the ball 10 yards.
From there, Mangum had the first major momentum of the night — the first major UConn blunder. He fired a 21-yard pass to big Mitch Mathews, who easily hauled in the touchdown pass. BYU led 20-10.
On the next possession, Mangum hooked up with Mathews on a fake look left and throw right move to put BYU up 27-13.
Mangum completed 35 of 53 passes for 365 yards, two TDs and two interceptions. He got BYU back in the chunk play business and set a freshman record for passing yards in a game.
Chunk plays won games against Nebraska and Boise State. Call them lucky, label them “Hail Marys” or just call it making big plays but they delivered.
These kind of plays have to be a part of the Cougar arsenal with Taysom Hill and Jamaal Williams gone for the season.
To recover from that kind of setback, of necessity, Bronco Mendenhall needs others to step up and deliver. It is unlikely BYU can do that with a fledgling run game. It must come through freshman QB Tanner Mangum “using” the best and most hyped asset: Big receivers.
On this night, Terenn Houk caught 6 passes for 129 yards through three quarters. He hauled in passes for 34, 14, 16, 28 and 13 and 24 yards. Nick Kurtz had a 25-yard catch. Juergens caught a 21-yarder before he got clotheslined on the sideline just before intermission. Mathews? Well, he had that 21-yard score.
Just after halftime, Algernon Brown ripped off a 34-yard run between the tackles. On BYU’s second TD pass to Mathews, freshman Francis Bernard ripped off a 19-yard run to set up Mangum inside UConn’s 10. He added an 18-yarder with 3:38 left in the game.
Chunks.
Defensively, Kaufusi and Michael Shelton had interceptions and Kaufusi, Sione Takitaki, Sae Tautu and Manoa Pikula had sacks.
Against UCLA Cougar chunk yards were scarce. Against Michigan they were almost nonexistent in a 31-0 Wolverine shutout. The longest BYU offensive play in Ann Arbor was a 29-yard run by Adam Hine. Of course, he hurt his ankle and is out of action for a month or more.
UConn posed an interesting challenge for the Cougars. While UConn did not have the reputation or defensive ranking of a Michigan (No. 2) or a Boise State (No. 16), the Huskies did come to Provo with the No. 21 ranked total defense in the country.
Mangum did not face the same kind of pressure he saw against Michigan and UConn’s coverage wasn’t based so much on lock down corners in man coverage.
Against Nebraska and Boise State, the Cougars had at least four plays go for more than 20 yards; of course there were the scoring bombs. But in the loss to UCLA in the Rose Bowl BYU had none over 20, the longest play was a 19-yard catch by Mitch Juergens. At Michigan, as mentioned, the longest Cougar play was that 29-yard run by Hine.
UConn arrived in Provo allowing 295 total yards a game; the Cougars got 539.
Progress.
Dick Harmon, Deseret News sports columnist, can be found on Twitter as Harmonwrites and can be contacted at dharmon@desnews.com.