BYU football: Cougs have protected their turf well

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Provo » Back in Tallahassee, the Florida State Seminoles have a little piece of ground they call Sod Cemetery. Seems that any time the 'Noles get a big road win, they cut out a piece of sod -- or artificial turf -- throw it in a plastic bag and take it back home, where it is planted next to a little monument signifying the win.

Chunk-of-grass No. 78 -- which could come Saturday when FSU meets No. 7 BYU at LaVell Edwards Stadium (5 p.m., Versus) might be cause for more than just a little tombstone, and not just because the Cougars' field was re-sodded in the offseason for the first time since 1981.

Under coach Bronco Mendenhall, BYU has developed one of the strongest home-field advantages in college football, and an FSU win would certainly be one of the most impressive since the Seminoles have been stockpiling the opposing team's greenery since 1962.

The Cougars are 7-point favorites.

"We emphasize [winning at home] every year," said BYU quarterback Max Hall. "Every year, at the very beginning of camp, the first thing we do is we run up to the Y [on the mountain] and look down at the stadium, because we take so much pride in playing at home, and winning at home.

"So we just want to do everything we can to keep that home streak going on Saturday."

The Cougars (2-0) have won 18 straight home games, last losing at LES on Nov. 19, 2005 in overtime to Utah, 41-34. Since starting the Mendenhall era with a 20-3 loss to Boston College -- an ACC team, like Florida State -- in 2005, BYU has not lost a non-overtime home game.

And BYU hasn't just squeaked by in most of those 18 wins. The team has outscored opponents by an average margin of 27.8 points in that span, allowing just 11.3 points per game. In 2006, the Cougars outscored opponents by an average of 35 points per game, and last year the average winning margin was 30.1, thanks mostly to that 59-0 thrashing of UCLA.

The current home winning streak is a school record, but it will be tested this season like never before.

Along with hosting FSU on Saturday in Provo, where BYU is expecting its 13th-straight sell-out crowd of nearly 65,000, the Cougars will also entertain No. 15 TCU and No. 18 Utah this season.

"It is just a great atmosphere, a great place to play, and it is home, you know, it is our turf. It is also great playing in front of our home crowd and there is just an energy there that we kind of feed off of. I think that's why we play so well," Hall said.

With the second-winningest coach in major college football history, FSU's Bobby Bowden, visiting on Saturday, BYU safety Andrew Rich said the "atmosphere is going to be even more electric" than usual.

However, the 79-year-old Bowden is downplaying one of the BYU advantages many low-landers point to when they visit Provo -- that the stadium sits more than 4,000 feet above sea level and the air is thinner, supposedly making it harder for non-altitude teams to breathe.

"It never bothered us at Denver" when FSU beat Colorado 16-6 two years ago, Bowden said. "And it is something I will never mention to my players."

Mentioning the importance of playing well at home and re-establishing the home-success tradition started by LaVell Edwards -- who will attend Saturday's game to welcome Bowden, a longtime friend -- is something Mendenhall has done a lot since replacing Gary Crowton after the 2004 season.

"I have talked to them about the stadium," Mendenhall said Wednesday. "I haven't mentioned how many games we have won, etc. I think that becomes almost like a burden to bear, when you start talking about how many and to continue that. But I have reminded them what a great opportunity it is to play at home and I did that Monday."

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