BYU basketball lands another commitment, BYU football eyes Weber State game

The Cougar football team will work on Labor Day, practicing later tonight at the indoor practice facility on campus. Media availability is around 7 p.m. when practice concludes. Preparations begin in earnest for Saturday's 1 p.m. encounter with Weber State, as this report details. However, the BYU sports world already featured some breaking news today, as BYU basketball coach Dave Rose landed a commitment from another member of the class of 2013 (this year's seniors). Luke Worthington, a 6-foot-8, 240-pound forward at Homestead High in Mequon, Wis., committed to Rose on Sunday night. Read more about Worthington here. Worthington is LDS and has a lot of family living in Utah; He plans on playing right away at BYU, and for four consecutive seasons. ————————- Had a chance to watch ESPN's telecast of Thursday's BYU-Washington State game on Sunday and noticed that several of those personal fouls and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties were borderline, at best. Or in the case of Jordan Johnson, the retaliator got flagged, instead of the instigator. Here's what BYU linebacker Brandon Ogletree said when I asked him Thursday night about the discipline-related penalties: "I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you what caused those. People were probably trying to do too much," he said. "That's usually most of the time what it is. But coach Mendenhall trusts us, and he is usually kind of hands-off when it comes to that stuff. He is calm, and he is not going to get in anyone's face. That kinda shows the level of trust he has in us. All he has to do is tell us one time, and usually it works out. You never want to see, what was it, 112 penalty yards? That's not our thing. So we need to get that corrected."Johnson's take on his personal foul penalty: "Yeah. I had one. I apologize to my team. Even though, you know what I am saying, he came at me. There's no excuse for me to jaw back at him. It hurt us, know what I am saying? But we only gave up that field goal. We will learn from that, and it won't happen again." Here's Ogletree's take on Johnson's big interception and return: "That's what we live for, man. When Jordan Johnson gets a pick. To see Jordan Johnson, and how far he has come with this team, man, once he makes a great play like that, you are just so happy for him," Ogletree said. "Because we sweat together, we bleed together, all year long. So those are the deposits, and on game nights when we make the withdrawals, it is just a lot of fun. It is a celebration." —————————- Best stuff of the night might have came from Ogletree, who said the BYU defense was "tired" of hearing about the Air Raid offense of WSU. "Yes. It is an insult. It is a slap in the face, man," he said. "We were a top 15 defense last year. I don't want to hear about how we should be scared of anyone. C'mon man. I mean, we respect them, obviously. But we are not scared of anybody. I will put our defense up against any offense in the country." Was there anything at all from WSU's offense that caught them off guard? "I mean, I don't think we were caught off guard at all," Ogletree said. "The stuff that they gained yards on, that's us making mistakes. It wasn't anything special they did. But, man, we watched hours and hours and hours of film, getting ready for these guys. We have a lot of respect for them. I still expect them to be one of the top offenses in the country this year, which I think says a lot about our defense. Getting ready for this game, man, we watched Texas Tech film, Oklahoma film, West Virginia film. Like, so much film, to try to get a beat on what they were doing. I think we understood it pretty well."Ogletree on the defense's performance: "I mean, anytime you hold a team to negative yards rushing, that is a huge accomplishment. That's a dominant performance in our book. We did really well against the run. The great part about our team right now is we are not happy about letting them score six points. I think that's scary, if you are an opposing offense, because we got guys in there that are ticked that we gave up six points. Same thing with the offense. They are not happy that they left as many points off the board as they did, so overall I think it is a really good start. That is one in the book, and we gotta keep it rolling from here."