After watching BYU’s relatively easy victory over the Arizona Wildcats on Saturday, Cougar fans were left with the feeling that this could turn out to be another great season. Next on the list for BYU is a tough UCLA Bruins team. The Bruins recently destroyed Stanford 38-17. Of course, Stanford’s football program has experienced a significant decline in recent years. But still, when you can put up 38 points in a game, you’ll be a team that other teams have to take seriously.
On the other side of the ball are the BYU Cougars. Yeah, they only beat Arizona by 13 points, but let’s be real. The scoring was not very indicative of the game as a whole. BYU’s offense was able to move the ball with surprising ease. If it hadn’t been for some rust early in the season, the Cougars would have been able to run the score much higher than they did. Also, the Cougar defense had an absolutely stellar game. Until Arizona’s final drive in the 4th quarter when the game was almost over, the Cougars limited Arizona’s offense to just 3 first downs in 3 quarters. I don’t care who you are, that’s awesome! The swarming core of linebackers along with the disciplined secondary were too much to handle. If the defense continues to play as well and Max Hall puts in another balanced performance, the Cougars will have a fighting chance against the nationally ranked Bruins.
Prediction: Bruins 24, Cougars 17.
BYU is playing well and retains a lot of confidence from last year, but the Bruins just have too much firepower. Seeing as I’m a devoted BYU fan, I hope I’m wrong. It will be interesting to see Ben Olsen and Max Hall duel, with Olsen being a former BYU quarterback and Hall being the current one.