Posted by ESPN.com's Graham Watson
By the time last week's 32-7 TCU win over BYU ended, the crowd at Amon G. Carter Stadium had been chanting "overrated" for much of the fourth quarter.
But it took BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall until Tuesday's Mountain West teleconference to acknowledge that maybe the chants weren't that far off.
Mendenhall hesitated to call last week's loss a wake-up call, but said maybe his BYU team wasn't quite as good as its No. 9 national ranking suggested.
"I think [last Thursday's game] was the most accurate barometer of where this team is currently in relation to where we want to be by the end of the season," said Mendenhall, who's never been shy about speaking his mind when it comes to his team. "And sometimes with the praise and accolades and success of the previous two years and then six straight wins, sometimes you believe you're better than you really are.
"And to me, I was very thankful after, even though disappointed, that we had a very clear measure of where we currently stand. I think that should help us move forward. How long it will take? I'm not sure, to reach our potential. But I think there's added inspiration."
There's no denying that since the first half of the Utah State game a few weeks ago, the Cougars, especially on offense, have looked a little off. Some of that is attributed to putting in backup players in the second half against the Aggies, but even before that, quarterback Max Hall looked slightly off and out of sync with his receivers.
The same problems surfaced against New Mexico and then the problems became glaring deficiencies against a TCU defense that was able to exploit them.
"I think that we have been a little flat, haven't been quite as inspired, nor have we been as sharp just in terms of the position mastery and execution things that have kind of been the signature parts of our program," Mendenhall said. "In terms of what's helped us win the number of football games we had and be successful, those things have not been as sharp, and I'm talking about throughout the entire team and that's what we're working on."
Mendenhall said he didn't know what to expect for Saturday's game against a UNLV team that suffered a 29-28 loss to Air Force last weekend. At the time of the conference call he said it was too early to tell about his team's mindset after such a devastating loss, but he said he thinks the Cougars will come out wanting to set right what went wrong a week ago.
"My hope is that they're anxious to apply the lessons from the last one and move forward," Mendenhall said. "I think it remains to be learned, and that's resiliency and it's heart and it's a willingness to really strive and reach for their potential. Now that some shortcomings have been exposed, the diligence and how hard they're willing to correct those things and really improve, I think, will be really found out."
Watson joined ESPN.com in 2008 after four seasons covering the Missouri Tigers and the Big 12 Conference for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She also covered college football recruiting for the Dallas Morning News.
