BYU injuries continue...

Much can be said about the Aggie Football team. They're undersized on both lines, they're not athletic enough to run the style of defense that Coach Andersen wants them to run. They've revamped their entire schema and expected everyone to learn a whole new, much more difficult system in a matter of just a few months. On top of all that, SI.com has selected them to go to the New Mexico Bowl, and with that could come the pressure to excel. With all of this, Logan hopes the team will win at least three games, and have a winning record at home. A stinker season, while not entirely unexpected in Logan, would be viewed as a step backwards by many.

Mainly, it's very easy to look at the Aggies and see a lot of negatives.

But at least we're not in BYU's position.

BYU's injuries continue to plague them, not in the Oklahoma game, not over six weeks of tough, physical contests involving the best defenses in the country, not even in the form of a car wreck or other tragedy, but in TRAINING CAMP. BYU seems utterly determined to kill themselves off before the season even starts. I think, if this continues, BYU will stand a serious threat of not only losing to Oklahoma, but also to Florida State.

The latest of the Cougars' woes comes in the form of Safety Scott Johnson, who decided to try and clobber a man 50 pounds heavier than him, Manase Tonga. Most Ute and Cougar fans alike are quite familiar with the heavy BYU tailback - he spent last year out of the program because he couldn't make the grades necessary to be a part of BYU's team - something that limited the strength that BYU could produce coming out of the backfield since Fui Vakapuna had to handle that heavy load of blocking for Harvey Unga all by himself.

Speaking of Harvey Unga, he's also injured! The all-star running back for the Y pulled his hamstring in practice. Rejoice, Aggie Nation! Oh, wait. He should be ready for the Oklahoma game, but with any luck, he'll be back off the field by the time that USU rolls into town.

You can see the article Jay Drew wrote about the BYU injuries here.

I guess if you do things right, the Lord steps in and plays a part. Right, Austin Collie? (God doesn't car who wins and loses in sports.)

Perhaps we should be speculating less about the brutality which the coaches in Provo are driving their team to inflict upon themselves and speculate more about the "personal worthiness" of the BYU athlete, because according to Collie's logic, they must not be doing a whole lot of good in the world. Else, why would they be suffering so many setbacks before the season even starts?

All of this news about BYU's injuries only makes me wish that instead of the U for the first game, we got the Y. A weakened, slow BYU team that got slaughtered by Andersen's schemes last year would have a hard time facing USU's defense this year, despite the fact that the stud linebacker position still hasn't been solidified and that Chris Matthews, a freshman, may have to give up his redshirt in order to fill the position for the Aggies.

The Herald Journal wrote a pretty good article about the Matthews situation. You can find it here.

All things considered, it looks like Andersen is superior to Bronco in at least one way - keeping his players healthy and having them ready to play at the beginning of the season.