After yielding 595 yards of total offense to Tulsa last Saturday night, the BYU defense has a lot to prove heading into its homecoming game Saturday against Air Force.

Tulsa quarterback Paul Smith threw for a career-high 454 yards and five touchdowns last week as the Golden Hurricane (2-0) defeated the Cougars (1-2) 55-47.

It was the highest scoring game BYU has been a part of since Oct. 29, 2005, when it defeated Air Force 62-41.

"We just broke down and didn't recover," said senior defensive back Quinn Gooch.

The loss marked the second consecutive season BYU has begun the season 1-2.

Last season the Cougars suffered two heart-wrenching non-conference losses at Arizona and Boston College before coming home and blanking Utah State, who finished the season 1-11, by a score of 38-0.

Rebounding in a similar fashion this year, however, will not be quite as easy against the resurgent Air Force Falcons (3-0).

The Falcons began the season surrounded by question marks after the retirement of Fisher DeBerry, their head coach for 23 seasons. DeBerry was well-known for running a highly successful triple-option offense, and it was unclear how the Air Force would adjust to new head coach Troy Calhoun and his more balanced approach.

Many of those question marks have been erased as Air Force comes into its matchup with the Cougars on an emotional high after beginning its portion of conference play with two consecutive victories.

On Sept. 8, Air Force defeated Utah 20-12 in the conference opener for both teams. Then, last week, trailing TCU 17-3 in the fourth quarter, Air Force managed to score two touchdowns in the final nine minutes to tie the score at 17 and send the game into overtime.

In overtime, TCU got the ball first but missed a 36-yard field-goal attempt. Air Force got the ball next and was able to connect on a game-winning, 33-yard field goal to complete the improbable upset.

"Air Force is a great team," Cougar defensive back David Nixon said. "They've got lots of weapons. It's going to be a challenge for us defensively."

One of the biggest challenges facing the Cougars this week will be their ability to stop the rush.

Through their first three games, the Falcons are averaging 253 yards of rushing per game. And while Calhoun has said he is going to move them into a more balanced offense, their quarterback, Shaun Carney, is still averaging fewer than 20 passes per game.

Cougar senior linebacker Kelly Poppinga says that even after seeing all the success Tulsa had in the passing game, he still doesn't expect Air Force to deviate from their usual style.

"Air Force is going to run the football," he said. "They're not going to try to be somebody that they're not."

Although the Cougars' defense struggled mightily in Tulsa last week, Nixon and the rest of the Cougars' defensive players are refusing to panic and expect much better results this week.

"We're prepared to bounce back and do better," Nixon said. "I think we all realize that giving up 55 points is not what we do as a defense. It's not what we're made of."

Poppinga looked at it as a learning experience and still has confidence.

"We're a great defense, and we're a great team," he said. "Sometimes those are things that you need as a team, as a defense, to get humbled. Those humbling experiences help you to become a better person, a better team and hopefully achieve better things."

Another challenge facing the Cougars will be to limit their penalties. In their last two games, the Cougars have been flagged a total of 25 times.

"We just keep working," head coach Bronco Mendenhall said. "The emphasis we placed on them is higher now than it was last year at this time. We just stayed the course (last year) and that's what I intend to do (this year). That's all I know how to do. We'll just keep battling through it."

Although the season is still early, quarterback Max Hall placed a lot of emphasis on this game.

"We have a little bit more sense of urgency," he said. "This is almost kind of like a must-win game for us. We really want to go out and take it to these guys and want to execute."

This will be the conference opener for the Cougars. Last season the Cougars defeated Air Force 33-14 in Colorado Springs and finished 8-0 in conference play, outscoring conference opponents by an average of 40-14.

The Cougars have won five of the previous nine meetings between the two teams, including the last three. The last time Air Force defeated BYU was in 2003 when the Falcons won 24-10 in Provo.

It is anticipated that a second consecutive sellout crowd of more than 64,000 will pile into LaVell Edwards Stadium on Saturday to see the contest. This is the first time since 1999 that the Cougars have sold out two consecutive games in the same season.



Copyright Brigham Young University 21 Sep 2007