BYU holds on to defeat Washington 38-27

Bronco Mendenhall had a confession to make and he said he’d probably regret it after sharing the truth.

He’s worn the same warmup pants for the Washington, UCLA and Oregon games — all BYU victories over Pac-10 schools. If you see him in these blue duds Saturday at home against UCLA, instead of those tan slacks the rest of the staff wears, you’ll understand, he’s got a little thing going.

Jan Jorgensen blocked a extended-length PAT in the closing seconds to preserve a 28-27 BYU win over Washington here this afternoon. It marked the second-straight win over a Pac-10 school on a blocked kick, something Jan Jorgensen and Max Hall said they knew, without any doubt, would happen.

The Cougars got a 136 yard, 23 carry performance from Harvey Unga and a 10 catch 148 yard day from star tight end Dennis Pitta to key this win.

Max Hall had another sharp day, completing 30 of 41 passes for 338 yards and 3 touchdowns with one pick to lead the Cougars.

Here’s a couple of observations before I get back to producing my column and other stories for the newspaper print edition.

First, I thought BYU’s offensive line won this game. They dominated the line and enabled Unga to run and Hall to have all kinds of time. Period, they were the men. Hall hardly got touched in this game, a key for staying healthy for the upcoming home game against the Bruins.

Second, BYU’s defense will take a lot of criticism for giving up big plays and allowing 27 points. While I cannot point out a whole slug of big plays out of this unit on the day, other than Jorgensen’s blocked PAT and a huge sack by David Nixon that caused a fumble, they have a lot of work to do. BYU’s defense was set on the field to primarily be in position to help on Locker. The Cougars had three plans to stop Locker, a pass pressure rush, an 8-man drop and some zone help packages. But if Locker had close to the arm and accuracy of Hall, Washington would have won this game, he had receivers wide open all day long.

Washington’s receivers had great ability, but BYU’s receivers, in particular Pitta, outplayed them all day long.

I did think Scott Johnson played a great game at corner.

BYU’s execution won this game. Just like they practiced, they won this game by precision, timing and getting the ball to the big weapons.

Finally, this should have been a 7 to 14 point win for BYU.