The day after

On the day after a humbling 25-point loss at TCU, BYU is still receiving a lot of national attention.
Only this time, it’s not so positive.
If you’ve been watching SportsCenter, you know what I mean, with the frequent highlights of Jerry Hughes busting through the Cougar offensive line and getting his paws on Max Hall.
The Cougars fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter to the Horned Frogs and could not recover. After the game, the players and coaches had deer-in-the-headlights looks. It had been a long time since they had lost a game and it had been even a longer time since they had been so thoroughly dominated from start to finish.
For BYU, everything crashed down like the stock market. Goodbye, winning streaks. Goodbye, BCS bowl hopes. Still to come for the Cougars: a precipitous plummet in the national polls. Suddenly, BYU is tied for third in the conference standings with Air Force. And, suddenly, that Utah-TCU game on Nov. 6 just got a lot bigger.
For BYU, there’s still five games remaining on the schedule.
With all of the talk and focus since after the Las Vegas Bowl about going undefeated and going to the BCS, how will the Cougars react? BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall has been saying for months that the goal is to win the conference championship and even that is in doubt now. Not only are the Cougars going to have to win out, they are going to need help from other teams.
Right now, though, BYU needs to work on helping itself recover and finish the season strong.