This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Cougars suffered only one significant injury in Saturday's 49-10 win over Colorado State, but it was a season-ending one, coach Bronco Mendenhall said Monday in his weekly news conference. Nose tackle Jordan Richardson, who was pressed into the starter's role after Romney Fuga went out against Nevada, suffered a torn ACL and is done for the season. Mendenhall said Eathyn Manumaleuna will move over from his defensive end position to be the starting NT, a position he has played off and on this season, as well as the season before he left on a church mission. Walk-on Simote Vea will backup Manumaleuna, and freshman defensive end Graham Rowley will also be cross-trained to play there. Richardson's injury was the only major news to come out of the news conference. Mendenhall also answered questions about the team's momentum right now, about the resiliency of the senior class, about New Mexico's schemes and possible improvement, about Andrew Rich's leadership, about Jake Heaps' improvement and how that has happened, and about the prospects of becoming bowl eligible. The 5-5 Cougars need one more win to get bowl eligible for the sixth-straight year. Here are a few answers from Mendenhall. I'll post the complete transcript later today: * On BYU's momentum right now: "To capture momentum is the most significant job, and usually that takes a significant event." He traced it back to his becoming "more involved" and "rolling up sleeves" and doing something to show that "there would be change." Did not mention his firing or def. coordinator Jaime Hill. He added: "We are anxious to see how much better we can get in the two weeks we have remaining in the regular season." * On getting the road win: "I didn't make a big deal about it to our team, only that it is the next opportunity." * On having people believing in the program again: "They should believe in it, and any that didn't, that's probably an oversight on their part." * On the contributions of the senior class: "Resilient would be the word that I would use." * On whether the success now can be attributed to the earlier struggles: "I am sure that it wouldn't have mattered as much, the successes we are having now, without the early season struggles." * On whether he will be sentimental about facing New Mexico for the last time, having been a coordinator there: "The people now are gone, that I once knew, and enough time has passed where now it is another conference game, is the way I view it." * On watching film of Jake Heaps' performance and how he has improved: "We made a decision about five weeks ago that in practice .....every single day we are throwing the football against each other, offensively and defensively." Said in retrospect, it was a mistake to not do it from the start of fall camp. * On getting bowl eligible with one more win: "I would love to continue to play football as long as I can this year with this team, and help them reach their goals. And that would certainly be one of the things I would like to see happen."