The BYU game Saturday night will be a litmus test of where this Arkansas football team is heading into SEC play.
Fans didn’t learn much in the first two games about this Arkansas football team.
When playing a FCS and then one of the weaker FBS schools in America, not only is it hard to motivate players to get up for those opponents, but it also isn’t a good gauge of how good your team ultimately is because theoretically, a team could sleepwalk through the majority of the game and still win.
“What’s amazing is first two game weeks, what’s amazing is that you prepare for the first game and it’s like ‘when is it going to get here?” Pittman said. “As you prepare nine days out, you’re assuming the guys are going to be hyped up because it’s first game of the year. Second game, you can prepare them all you want, as urgent as you want. They have to accept there’s a reason for urgency. Sometimes it’s simply who you’re playing.”
With BYU coming to town Saturday night, however, along with a national television audience on ESPN2, this will be the chance for the Razorbacks to show out.
At the time, people chalked that up to the Bobby Petrino return factor, and that Arkansas was looking ahead to the SEC opener with Texas A&M.
Maybe that was the case.
However, if Arkansas thinks they can afford to do that again, BYU will walk out of here with a victory.
“BYU, I know this, last year BYU was an urgent game,” Pittman said. “It was a must-win for us. It is now. It’s hard to beat a team that hasn’t lost. Both of us haven’t, so someone is going to have to. I think our kids understand the urgency of this game.”
Arkansas welcomes BYU to Fayetteville a year after posting a convincing 52-35 victory over the Cougars in Provo last season.
Arkansas had never played BYU before last year’s trip to Provo, Utah, and the team returned with a 52-35 victory the week after a disappointing defeat in Starkville.
The Cougars return the trip Saturday night in Fayetteville and come into the game armed with a 2-0 record, just like the Razorbacks.
Their wins have come over Sam Houston State, 14-0, and then they routed Southern Utah last week, 41-16.
Last week, Slovis threw for 346 yards and four touchdowns, completing 22 of 32 passes.
He is easily the best quarterback that Arkansas will have faced to this point as it is its last game before SEC play begins the following week.
Head coach Kalani Sitake is in eighth season at the helm of the Cougars. His team finished 8-5 a year ago and won the New Mexico Bowl, following two consecutive 10-win seasons in which his team finished the year ranked in the Top 20 both times.
Now he is ushering them into the Big 12. BYU will travel to Kansas next week in its inaugural league game.
They go to Texas on October 28 and host Oklahoma on November 18 before closing the year in Stillwater against Oklahoma State.
The running game struggled on Saturday against the Golden Flashes without Sanders, but it wasn’t exactly gangbusters with him against Western Carolina either.
It remains to be seen if Sanders will be available for the SEC opener with LSU the following week in Baton Rouge.
Sam Pittman says Rocket Sanders (knee) will be out this week vs. BYU. "Got to get some swelling off of him." Pittman expects Dwight McGlothern (turf toe) to be back this week.
Having McGlothern back will help the secondary, especially with BYU having a threat to throw the ball in Pittsburgh (and former USC) transfer Kedon Slovis.
Make your travel plans for Thanksgiving weekend next year.
Notre Dame’s 2023-24 season won’t start for another two months, but we already know one event on its calendar for the 2024-25 season. The Irish will take part in the 2024 Rady Children’s Invitational in San Diego. Also participating are Purdue, BYU and latest entry Arkansas. The first edition of this invitational will take place this Thanksgiving weekend, so it’s safe to assume next year event also will happen at the same time.
Breaking the mold for the invitational in 2023 will be USC, Seton Hall, Iowa and Oklahoma. The Irish have their own multi-day event this season in the Legends Classic in Brooklyn. They’ll tip that tournament off against Auburn and then play either Oklahoma State or St. Bonaventure.
The difference between this year’s Legends Classic and next year’s Rady Children’s Invitational is that in the latter tournament, [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag] will have a team more in line with what he’s looking for. Until then, he’ll go through some first-year struggles with a young roster that was patched together quickly out of necessity. It shows how different things can be from one season to the next.
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The Saints were among several teams scouting NFL hopefuls at BYU’s home opener — including Kingsley Suamataia, an early-round prospect at offensive tackle:
There are NFL scouts from the Steelers, Dolphins, Saints, and Chargers in the press box tonight. There may be one other, but I can't see a logo.
We told you to keep an eye on Kingsley Suamataia, didn’t we? The New Orleans Saints were one of several pro teams with scouts at BYU’s home opener with Sam Houston State on Saturday night, per BYU beat reporter and ESPN+ host Jason Shepherd, and Suamataia was by far the top prospect on the field.
He’s someone we highlighted over the summer as the Saints’ type of player. A former highly-prized recruit at Oregon, he transferred back home to finish playing college ball at BYU, and the 20-year-old is already drawing buzz as an early-round prospect in the 2024 NFL draft. He’s also the cousin of Saints linebacker Nephi Sewell (and his brothers Penei and Noah).
Suamataia was one of the nation’s better right tackles last year with the Cougars but has since returned to his high school position at left tackle. He’ll need to play well against top competition on BYU’s schedule to stay on the left side in the pros, but he has all of the athletic tools NFL coaches look for. It’s interesting that the Saints were on hand for his left tackle debut.
But Suamataia wasn’t the only NFL prospect in the game, though he’s the only one drawing first-round pick projections. He has teammates like junior linebacker Ben Bywater (who logged what felt like 30 tackles) with pro aspirations. There are other young guys up and down the depth chart — and some playing for Sam Houston State — who will be auditioning for NFL roster spots next spring. Their process starts here. A couple of nice plays in live action can create a strong first impression, setting up further interest at pro day workouts, and possibly lead to an offer as an undrafted free agent later on down the line. They need every chance they can get.
AI was a topic of discussion at SEC media days with Josh Heupel and Brian Kelly embracing it. Dr. D.J. Lee details his process of studying and implementing AI at BYU.
2023 has been a defining year for artificial intelligence.
Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel and LSU head coach Brian Kelly embraced AI at media days, discussing intriguing opportunities to implement the technology within their football programs.
Professor Dr. D.J. Lee has already kicked off studying AI at BYU. He is part of BYU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Lee discussed the early process of studying AI in relation to football with Vols Wire.
“We started this about two, two-and-a-half years ago,” Lee said. “My research has always been AI for visual information and processing, so I thought about applying it to football. We went and talked to the BYU football team and tried to learn what they are doing and to see what we could do to help them. They are still using software to do manual innovative of play formations based on videos.”
Lee’s early analysis of studying video provided to him is that camera angles are the most important aspect for teams to gain a competitive edge with AI.
Lee mentioned that sensors are not required, only an overhead camera of at least 50-70 degrees. The precise camera angles are a critical part of continuing a process of implementing AI into football programs.
“We started by looking at video they provided,” Lee said. “The next step will be to find videos recorded from higher up. Ideally, it would be having the camera placed up high to see the whole football field and does not move. That way we can use our algorithm to locate a player, determine the positions and the overall formation of the offense.
“We can then track the players, each player, and know how they move. We can also have them cut out the video for the part that they are interested in, so you don’t have to look at the videos during substitutions, between plays, or timeouts, all of that can be removed or find a time stamp to look at short video intervals you are interested in. There are a few things we can do to help football teams if a camera is mounted higher up.”
Lee also has relied on a Madden NFL video game as he continues to study AI to help teams.
“We bought the Madden 2020 video game,” he said. “You can select the formation and we captured the images and the videos from the game. We collected hundreds of videos and images to test it out. The result was very good, but we also found some challenges. The biggest challenge is the camera and occlusion problems.
“The quarterback maybe blocking the center, the center maybe blocking the defense. It is not enough to see every player, so we have to do a lot of work to try to see where all 22 players are. That was the biggest challenge using the Madden video game for collecting data to train our algorithm. The other challenge using it, once you hit play and the ball is snapped, then the camera moves to zoom into the ball carrier most of the time. You lose track of other players and how they move, so it’s not ideal. We managed to get some very promising results that we could recognize offensive formations.”
Lee’s next step is to have cameras recording from a higher position to collect more data, including tracking movement of players.
“You can track the players and see how they move,” Lee said. “That way it will help coaches to better game plan and is also a good training tool for the players to see how the opponent’s defense reacts during certain situations. With more video, I can make a dynamic game chart. I think that would be very helpful to prepare for players to improve their performance.
“Right now, we can accurately recognize formations from an image, but videos with cameras from high up can get to a dynamic play chart fairly quick.”
If you’re not a BYU or Utah student or alumnus, this might seem weird and distant, but if you have lived through the BYU-Utah rivalry — also the BYU-San Diego State rivalry (secondary to BYU-Utah but still potent) — you know why BYU fans are reveling in the Pac-12’s suffering and possible extinction.
Outsiders might really wonder if this is true.
Well, when we posted our story about this subject, the reactions from BYU fans confirmed our thesis.
Here’s a sampling of BYU Twitter reactions to the Pac-12’s crisis and to our Trojans Wire story:
Big 12 fans in general would revel in the Pac-12’s demise, but BYU fans have their reasons. No one can blame them.
Yes, Big 12 fans throughout the conference’s central Plains footprint are enjoying the Pac-12’s moment of crisis, anguish and possible death.
If the Arizona schools follow Colorado out the door, that’s the worst-case scenario for the Pac-12. It’s hard to see the conference remaining intact if that happens. Utah would have little to no reason to stick around. The same goes for Washington … and Oregon … and Stanford … and Cal-Berkeley. Washington State and Oregon State don’t want anything more or less than being Pac-12 members, but the other schools have actual options to varying degrees. If the Arizona schools leave, that’s probably it for the Pac-12.
Big 12 fans recall that when their conference was on the ropes a few years ago, people wondered if the Pac-12 would poach the remnants and put the Big 12 out of its existence. The media fueled that line of thought (albeit more out of speculative interest and a desire to get clicks than pure anti-Big 12 animus — that point might be irrelevant to some), and Big 12 fans remembered.
Now that the Pac-12 is in peril, every Big 12 fan is smiling and munching on popcorn.
Of any Big 12 fan base, however, one is especially reveling in this Pac-12 death drama. We’ll walk through the backstory on this one:
However, On3’s prediction model doesn’t see it that way.
Defensive linemen are all the rage in the 2024 recruiting cycle. One of several high-end DL recruits to keep an eye on over the next few weeks is Cedar Valley (Utah) four-star edge Devoux Tuataga.
According to 247Sports, Tuataga has offers from 13 different programs right now. However, Adam Gorney at Rivals reports that Oregon State and BYU appear to be in the driver’s seat for his commitment.
“Oregon State is definitely a team to watch in Tuataga’s recruitment especially after his visit to Corvallis, where he loved the feel of the town and he’s developed a great relationship with position coach Legi Suiaunoa. The Beavers and BYU have the edge right now for the Eagle Mountain (Utah) Cedar Valley standout who loved the culture in Provo as he’s LDS. But Oregon and Nebraska are also in there.”
However, On3’s prediction model doesn’t see it that way. They have Oregon as the favorite at 42.5%, followed by Tennessee (10%) and Nebraska (8.6%). Oregon State is tied with BYU at 7.1%, along with several other programs.
The latest news is that Tuataga will be visiting both Oregon and Nebraska before the end of the month, so perhaps we will be getting some more clarity on his recruitment after that.
For now, Tuataga (6-foot-6, 240 pounds) is ranked No. 36 at a deep position group, No. 4 overall in Utah and No. 507 nationally going by the 247Sports composite rankings.
Was 2004 the strangest year of Notre Dame football you ever watched?
In what will be an ongoing series here at Fighting Irish Wire, we take a look back at some of the most painful losses we’ve experienced during our Notre Dame fandom. We’ve all experienced them and they’re all awful in their own way. Here is the first in the series of brutal Notre Dame losses to come:
Notre Dame’s 2004 season was among the oddest in history and the first two weeks were a perfect representation of that as the Irish were upset at BYU in week one before knocking off a top-10 Michigan squad a week later.
The final year of Tyrone Willingham at Notre Dame got underway with the Irish offense sputtering as they fell behind 13-0 before getting on the board with a D. J. Fitzpatrick field goal as the first half ended.
Notre Dame put up a measly 276 total yards that night with just 11 coming on the ground, a week before Darius Walker would make his Fighting Irish debut.
Austin Collie, who would go onto a nice NFL career provided a 42-yard touchdown reception for BYU.
Brady Quinn, then a sophomore, completed 26 of 47 attempts for 265 yards and a score to Rhema McKnight.
Here are a few lasting photos from that forgettable night in Provo:
