LB David Nixon promises to be ready for UNM
David Nixon may have been more sore Sunday than he was on Saturday when he took a helmet in the leg and suffered a painful contusion or bruise.
Nixon underwent treatment on Sunday and will have more on Monday but he intends to be ready to start the New Mexico game. “My ankle got twisted, my leg got twisted and I was scared because I didn’t know what was happening or what was wrong,’ said Nixon.
“But the doctors examined me, everything is OK. On the surface, it doesn’t appear I have a sprained ankle or anything like that. It’s just football. You get banged up and bruised and you go on to the next game and I plan on playing Saturday.”
Nixon had ice on his leg after the Utah State game in Logan and he admitted, after sitting out the last quarter of the last two games, this time, having to play later in the game to protect that shutout that failed, was tiring.
The fact BYU’s offense didn’t keep the ball on long scoring drives, also put pressure on the defense.
“I admit, I was exhausted,” said Nixon. “I’ve been fighting a sinus fire lately, so for me, it was tough. We’ve been playing about 59 plays the last few games and had 42 in the first half of this game. (BYU’s defense averaged 64 plays per game for the season going into the USU game). We had tons of plays, we were tired, we kept fighting, we tried not to give up big plays.
“The second half we may have come out flat and they were rotating the backup quarterbacks and did a good job of chaging things up on us. That two man rotation kind of kept us on our heels, they made adjustments, we credit them for that, but we fought to the end and stopped them right there went it was almost over.”
Nixon said the Cougars have plenty to work on Monday after they break down film and prepare for New Mexico. “We gave up some big plays and had some stupid penalties. We pride ourselves on keeping our composure and staying calm. That’s something we’ve got to work on.
“New Mexico is a whole different scheme. Rodney Ferguson is a great running back. I’m glad we’ve got them at home because that’s a huge advantage of us, we don’t lose at home.”
That penalties, the frustration, even in a win, is part of playing USU or any other team that BYU is a huge favorite to defeat. It’s kind of a catch 22.
Assistant head coach Lance Reynolds put it this way:
“We won by a pretty good margin, but I’m not sure you ever feel good in these games unless you win 75 to nothing. Utah State changed up really well. We weren’t very sharp, we didn’t make the best decisions, we got impatient. Sometimes when you play a team you’re favored to beat by a large margin you get impatient and try to push things that you shouldn’t. We just weren’t sharp as we’ve been, but they played well and my hats is off to them.”
Reynolds, speaking for the offense specifically and the team in general, said needs to clean things up if the undefeated run is to continue.
“We can’t play like this and keep going. We could have been sharper; it could have been more clean but USU battled, they fought and they came out and played hard. Part of it is gritting your teeth and playing like it means something. We won and won handily but we’ve got to play better than this.”