Let's continue to talk Utah BYU.
The Monday after the rivalry game reaction Monday, Scott Mitchell on a Monday afternoon, Scott, a happy Monday.
How you doing.
I'm doing great. How are you doing?
I'm good man, I'm good. Let's just let's start. Let's start right away with the thing. Let's do the thing holding call. At the end of the game. You played QB at the highest of levels. Man, tell me what you saw you fans up in arms b YU. Fans say nothing to see here? What does Scott Mitchell say?
Well, if you look at the play and you know, I've seen ten thousand different angles of it, and you know there was a hold there, and and it's like, okay, fine, there's always holding. There's always something that goes on past interference. Holding between DB's and wide receivers. Is it's a nuanced art, you know, to really say, it's it's a basically do you impede someone's forward progress? And you know, so you look at it from the surfacing, Okay, we'll find it's
a hold whatever. But but the thing that's challenging for me is the official set a tone, and they set the tone all year this is how we're gonna let you play as a defensive back. These officials come to practices in the fall, they have discussions with coaches, they watch the players. I mean there's a lot of time, a lot of communication back and forth about what you can get away with and what you can't. And the officials clearly all year I basically said, we're gonna let
them play. I'm gonna let them play. So you you live in your mind as a dB coaches coaches this way. Everyone knows it's gonna you're you can, you can get physical, you can, you can get close to each other. And it's been consistent. That's what I've loved about it all year because I've loved Okay, you may not agree with it the way they're calling it, but at least they're
calling it the same way. And that was the challenge for me because you know, in that moment, on that play, in that situation, now you're gonna call this that That
was that was a little a little challenging. But the other side of it for me, Spence is you know it's too big to raik You know that kind of the slogan from the election you win by so much, you don't have to worry about late game calls like this constantly every week, week in and week out, putting your defense in the in the pressure situation to be perfect. I think it's hard because something like this is gonna happen. One guy somewhere makes one mistake and you lose a
football game. So to me, it's like, you need to score more points on offense. You have to ball on the fifty yard line twice and you punt from your fifty. That's egregious, and the offense was actually moving. Brandon Rose played very well, like he played very well in this game. And to not score points, to not even have an opportunity to kick at least a temp a couple of field goals in those drives, you know that's the problem. And so you know you can't just blame it on
that last play. And as a as a tough thing, it is a brutally hard peel though, to swallow when you think you've won the game. And I believe I know it. I paid it officials sometimes I've been so mad at him. I get it, but you just have to it's more than that play. I think that was the outcome of the game.
Certainly, and we'll get to all that.
But you referenced a little bit of an election slogan, and while we're in that space, after the game, Utah's athletic director Mark Harlan had a little stop to steal energy where he said, quote, I've been an athletic director for twelve years. This game was absolutely stolen from us. We were excited about being in the Big twelve. But tonight I am not We won this game. Someone else stole it from us. I'm very disappointed. I will talk to the commissioner. This is not fair to our team.
I'm disgusted by the professionalism of the officiating crew tonight. Well apparently he did talk to the commissioner and went like this, you owe me forty grand and you have been publicly reprimanded. So your reaction to what is going to be known twenty years from now, was the Mark Harlan moment in this rivalry.
Well, it's too soon to say this will be a historic moment, you know, because we're all still kind of reeling from it. But it will down the road. People will go remember the year that Mark Harlin just kind of lost his marbles and went off on things and It reminds me a little bit of you know that that social media post that you write at three o'clock in the morning, or that text message you write, you know, and you and you kind of have to ask yourself and should I should I hit send right now?
And the answers always no. By the way, the answer is always right.
Yeah, exactly. You should never say it. And he just said, forget that I'm sending this out, I'm hitting send. It's never a good thing. There's no there's no good optics to it, just none of it. It doesn't look good for him. Marks such a great a d and has done a tremendous job at Utah and and has been you know, incredible about brand, creating a brand, protecting a brand, building a brand, and and that that's that's a that's a tough one on the brand when you do that
really really out of character for him. Believe me, I know how it feels. We're all emotional after the game. When I coached, I was like, you know, I coached high school football, and I just I told the parents, I'll talk to you any day of the week, just not right after a game, because we're both going to say things that we'll regret later. It's always the case.
You know, we as media, we want to we want to get the reaction in the moment, but do we really you know, and and because when you do get the reaction, it's it's, uh, you know, maybe it's not what you really wanted. And I feel really bad for Mark, you know, the public reprimand kind of put you on notice. You know, it's not just a meaningless thing. It's like any kind of thing like this happens again, you're you're in and really, you know, you could be in some
significant hot water. Uh So it's not just oh not that wasn't a good thing. There's there's there's repercussions to to that. Biggest fine ever in the Big Twelve in this situation. So they they made a statement, and I'm sure Mark, you know, regrets it, maybe not in the moment. I mean I've been there. I know I've said things in the heat of the moment after a game and in the moment you just go, I don't care, you know, at this moment, like I don't care, but tomorrow I
probably will. And it's just it's unfortunate that that actually came out.
And to your I want to underscore your point. I don't know this for sure. We have reached out to the you to try to get Mark on the show this week. Hopefully it'll come in studio to try to kind of explain aside. If I had to guess, I
think he would like a mulligan. I think he you know, I'm not sure he's going to be like defiant when it comes to just react, reacting with emotion in the moment, how do you, as somebody, as you just said, somebody like you who has been in this scenario, how do you separate your emotion in the moment to react appropriately?
Because I think everybody was feeling them.
I walked, I watched the game on sidelines with Sean and order was there a bunch of XU players as well, And when that kick went through the uprights, you could feel the holy bleep just on the sideline in the stadium. So unfortunately, Scott, as you know, if you react simply out of emotion in the moment, you do things like and I've done it so many times, I am not judging. I've woken up before, I looked at my Twitter. I'm like, dude, just freaking go to bed.
Next time. But I mean, ultimately, if you.
React with emotion, you throw water bottles on the field as fans, you throw chairs and press conferences as coaches, and you say things that you need to walk back quickly. If you're an AD since you've been in that situation, how do you separate it in the moment?
Seems like it's pretty tough.
The best thing in the world's brutally tough. I mean, you know, and sometimes you do it right and sometimes you don't. And a lot of it is if you're trained at it and you practice it all the time and you realize, you know, let's have this discussion tomorrow or the next day or whatever. You're you're always better off.
But I know the moments where I just hit the send button and and you just you just it's hard to describe other than you go, you just kind of you just you know, you've just walked over the cliff. You know, you're just like you just I don't care what the repercussions of this, I don't care. And uh, and you know, and you and you just do it, and and there's it's it never turns out good. It never does, but you nonetheless still still feel like in that moment you have you have to do it. You know,
a lot of people. You take Charles Barkley, right, I think Charles got away with it and still gets away with it now because he's just done it forever. Like he just doesn't care what people think. It's like, fine, find me, I don't I don't care. And some people are really okay with it. Some people, you know, just they they live on that, you know, where they can just kind of say and do and be what they want. And and of course the media loves that, and it's great, wonderful,
And there are other people. Most people just you know, they just they just try to be professional, try to you know, just handle the situation. And quite frankly, for me, that's more of how how I was. It was like, I have an obligation of responsibility to talk to people, so I will talk to them in a civil tone and then I'll go handle the emotional side of this in a different way and and and deal with because you have to still deal with it. Look, you put
your heart and soul into something. This This team has had a brutally tough year like far, you know, just the crushing season with all the expectations, and really the rightful expectations is a very good football team, and to have the kind of year that they've had after a while,
it just wears on you. You spend so much time every just every week, the grind of the practice and the meetings and your body being beat up, and then to just pour your heart and soul on the field, really emotional game, massive crazy energy on the field, and then to have it end like that, it's just it's just so crushing and to and to feel like it's the judgment of another person that determines that it's not necessarily the play on the field. That's at least what
you feel. You know, when an official makes a call and and you're like, well, there's no repercussion for him, he goes home to his house, he still gets paid, he goes on. And so that's the challenge you have as a player, and the frustration you get kind of with officials, with with things that you know don't seem right or seem fair, and and and they're just times when you know you just you just lose it, you just do.
So I've never been a although I'm not a fan of officials, I'm very intrigued at sort of what, you know, what's of human would want to do that in life? I think that's fascinating because you're just so disliked. No matter what you do, one fan base is going to be mad at you on one hand or the other. I've never been a I'm not here for the blame the officials for the lost thing.
I don't like unwritten rules.
Like a guy dunks a ball when you're already up twenty with don't let them dunk it, Like if you don't want them to win, get in the way and do what you have to do if you're playing the sport.
So I'm not a blame the officials guy.
It certainly is a fascinating dynamic to discuss, and your perspective is always valuable. But away from the holding call, away from the second, well second third chance. Kalanie did get the time out on time, I mean, if you see the replay, did but it was another you know, kind of reminiscent of the miss field goals. You fans thinking that they're winning and they're not, they're winning and they're not, and then they didn't. So away from that though,
Scott from a thirty thousand foot view. Why did Utah lose this football game?
Oh boy, Well, here's the thing. In this conference, the talent is just really razor thin. Like you could take a hand, you know, you could take that all the teams right now that are at the bottom of the Big twelve, and by the grace of God, they could be in the top. And and and you could switch it around. I mean, you could go through through games that just broke a certain way for a certain team, uh differently, and and and so the margins are thin.
So you've got to have a quarterback that plays very well. You have to have the guys healthy, and you can't you can't get banged up. And you've got to have the right schedule. You've got to have all these things kind of play in your in your favor. And and Utah is just you know that they've had a lot of a lot of bounces not go their way in this game, you know. So so it's a very evenly matched game, and you have a BYU team who literally has to play almost perfect in the second half in
order to win. I mean, I mean, so many things had to fall right and to fall their way in order for them to win. And the pass that the Chase Roberts catches at the end of the game. I wasn't thrown to him. It was thrown to another guy and he just happened to be in the right place at the right time. And it's you know, it's about taking advantage of opportunities when you have them there. And that's what this that's what Utah has not done very well.
Calhoun has an interception, it's probably a pick six and he drops it, and it's you got to make that play. That's not a play that's like, oh, well he got his hand. No, he should have intercepted that ball, and that's a missed opportunity. There's you know, there's tons of this that you know. The play calling when they got to the fifty yard line, it's not about it's about protecting the lead in that situation. Now you have the ball fifty yard line. You have to get points out
of this, no matter what. You fight your life off just to get to the fifty yard line in normal situations when you start there, you know, so the play calling kind of bogged down a little bit, but it was really about when the opportunities were there, and it's across the board. You know it's not offense, not defense. As the whole team, Utah just hasn't been able to make plays to finish out games. And that's really what
happened in this game last last week. There were tons of opportunities that had Utah taken care of it or taken advantage of it, they would have easily won this game.
All right, obviously you're the guy we talked to about the quarterback play. Tell me what you saw, the good and the bad from Brandon, and then also interested in your thoughts when it comes to just why the offense stalled in the second half. I think it was seventy nine yards and four first downs after putting up twenty one in one quarter.
I mean, this is an offense that couldn't move the ball.
They haven't scored twenty four or more against a P four team all year. They hang twenty one in the second, then they go dormant in the second half. So give me your thoughts on Brandon and also your thoughts why the offense called out.
Well, this is Brandon Rose's first start in college football in a rivalry game. Heated massive environment, and he was up to the challenge from the get go. I mean immediately you could see the accuracy of the throws and the command and the wanting to be there. I mean, he throws the touchdown to Keithy and I don't think he I don't think his feet touched the ground when he went off the field. He was so pumped up.
He was just you know, and you and you love that passion, You love that excitement, and he he again. It was just an extension of what I saw before. Very decisive, very comfortable, whether he was running or throwing. You know, the decisions were there through the ball, extremely accurate,
threw the ball down the field very well. Just even the interception, like you know, Coach Whittingham mentioned in his press conference that the tight end went the wrong way on the route and that would have been a completion. I mean, he threw it in the in the right spots. It wasn't like, oh that was a bad decision, a bad throw. It was just a tight end kind of kind of hung him out to dry. I I was even more impressed with Brandon Rose than I was I
was two weeks ago against Houston. I mean, this guy can play, and it's good to see that he's that he's having the opportunity. Now, why did the offense bog down? You know, A lot of it is is just teams make adjustments, right, So so b Yu there, you know, you move the ball on them. They can't just sit there and go yeah, we'll just say doing the same thing we're doing. And and let you let you march
down the field. And and so they make adjustments. And the adjustments were kind of some of their their stunts up front. And what it forced Utah into these third long, second and long situations and and and I really think you talk out really conservative on its play calling in the second in the second half, where they hadn't been you know before, and and and by you made an adjustment,
and Utah didn't really adjust well to that adjustment. So they had these third downs and they got super conservative, and you know, and and maybe that's coach Whittingham saying, hey, I don't want you to try to go for it here. I don't want you to, you know, get get too aggressive on these third and longs. So let's just punt
the ball. And they did, and and you know, they backed up Yu and they and you know, other than you know, they it looked like they had them for the most part when they when they had them backed up and they had the one long touchdown drive, and it was really when Utah kind of went back into a zone and played soft, and when they pressed the receivers and they pressured the quarterback. That's when the defense really really got after but just got a little conservative,
you know. You you kind of get into a mindset of, well, let's let's play not to lose as applosed as opposed to playing to win. And I'm more of a let's be more aggressive. Let's you know, when you got the ball at the fifty yard line, I mean, you got us get point. I don't care what you say. You have got to get points. Whether it's field goals, touchdowns, and you targets, you know, anything, any a field goal. They still win the games.
Yeah, that's all they needed. That's all they needed.
I wonder did it feel to you like it was Stanley from the office, this is just a run the clock out situation. It felt like they were just trying to kill the clock, playfield position. I don't know if that's play calling. I don't know if that's Mike, but Jake,
and I don't know if that's Kyle Whittingham. But there were so many second half drives, and definitely in the fourth quarter where it just felt like they were just trying to kill the clock, play field position and then instead of playing to win, playing not to lose, like the old cliche goes, is that a fair assessment of what you saw?
Oh yeah, well it felt like it at least, you know, I don't most you know, not at the very beginning of the second half or sure, yeah, when they started winning the field position battle and they started getting these really good, good field positions. Yet it did feel like that. But when you know, going back to how the talent is so equal, that makes every possession, It makes everything
you do so much more magnified. Like you you you have to take advantage of the opportunities you have in every game and you know everything that's going on because you can't afford you're not that good. No one is that you can just wow, okay, hey we'll punt it right here, no big deal. You know, it's like no,
now you have to uh. There has to be a sense of urgency, a sense of attention to detail, a sense of like you can never not focus and you know when you're when you're a defense like you, though, has there been some lapses that have caused big plays? And it's maybe a guy got you know, a little lazy or lost focus somewhere and then and then those big plays kind of happen and you just you can't afford to ever ever let down. And and I think there's been a little bit of that with this team.
You know, there's there hasn't been quite that that intense focus and that you know, that a realization that every play matters, and and and have that urgency of everything. You know, when you when you when you play on every snap.
All right, Scott, before I say you loose, We'll finish on this.
It's a simple yet complexed question because b Yu has answered every question that's been asked of them, and your are who your record says you are. They are clean all together, and they're cleaning conference, and they have a tremendous margin of error between now and the end of the season. They're probably going to Dallas. It looks like no matter what happens. But my question is simple, again, the answer might be complex. How how good do you think they are?
So I've talked to buddy of mine earlier and he's a huge bay You've Haan and And I said, if you'd asked me a year ago, Okay, which of the two teams by U Utah is the first to go to the college football playoffs, one hundred out of one hundred people would say Utah. And and the reality is right now, you know BYU is, with their schedule, with the way they've played, it's not just going to the Big Twelve championship because if they well, first of all,
they need to run the table. If they want to go to the playoffs, they need to run the table because one loss will will kind of mess them up, so they can they could be a one loss team after the conference championship, I believe, and still make the playoffs. And the reality is what I what I have been so impressed with them. You know, there's not I don't know that. There's a lot of great teams. Maybe the best team in college football's Oregon. But you know, Georgia's
lost twice, Alabama's lost twice. Maybe Texas is up there, you know, Ohio State. Maybe those are the three best teams in the country. And I don't know, but you know, I think what b Yu does and will continue to do. Is they're always going to give themselves a chance to win every week because they play hard and they play for each other, and it's not one guy. I mean,
they do it by committee on defense and offense. And because of that, everyone knows they they're they're going to do their part and and and it's it's kind of a good situation to have happened. So I you know, I think they'll make the playoffs. Personally, what happens in the playoffs. You know, you don't have to win every game, You just have to win the one game in front of you. I mean, anything's possible.
All right, Scott, Well, I appreciate the time. Man, it was such an interesting night. It's such a crazy game. But have a great week. Best of luck and Boulder and we'll chat soon.
Okay, all right, appreciate it. Thanks. Vin,