The following notes and quotes are from BYU's 20-6 win over Portland State.
ATTENDANCE: 55,427
AMERICAN FLAG BEARER: DL Motekiai Langi
TEAM FLAGS: DL Sione Takitaki and OL JJ Nwigwe
ALUMNI FLAG BEARERS: Tim Hanshaw (‘88, ‘91-94), Eric Drage (‘89-93), Troy Stoddard (‘93), Charlie Peterson (‘95, ‘98-01)
TEAM NOTES
Season Openers
The Cougars won their fourth-consecutive season opener. BYU improves to 59-32-2 in openers and 10-2 since 2006.
Reception Game
Ten different receivers caught passes against Portland State, with Matt Bushman, Talon Shumway and Aleva Hifo having multiple catches.
Positive Turnover Margin
BYU was +1 in the turnover margin today. Last season, BYU was 6-3 with a positive turnover margin.
PLAYER NOTES
Matt Bushman
Freshman tight end Matt Bushman had three catches for 56 yards in his first action as a Cougar, including a 36-yard reception.
Neil Pau’u
The freshman wide receiver and younger brother of Butch Pau’u had his first career reception (28 yards) and touchdown.
Tanner Mangum
Starting in his first season opener in his career, the junior quarterback completed 16 of 27 passes for 194 yards and one touchdown. He improves to 10-4 as a starting quarterback.
Squally Canada
Leading all rushers on the game, Canada set a career-high 98 rushing yards on 16 carries. He rushed for his third career touchdown.
Fred Warner
The senior captain led the team with 10 tackles, including seven solo stops. It was the third time in his career with double-digit tackles. He also had one tackle for loss.
Aleva Hifo
Hifo’s four receptions tied his career high (West Virginia, 2016).
Sione Takitaki
In his first game since October 16, 2016 (Cincinnati), Takitaki had seven tackles, three tackles for loss and two sacks. He set a new career high in tackles for loss and tied his career record in sacks.
Zayne Anderson
In his first career start, Zayne Anderson notched his first career interception, to go along with four tackles and pass breakup.
CAREER HIGHS
Tackles: Trajan Pili, 3
Tackles for loss: Sione Takitaki, 3
Sacks: Sione Takitaki, 3 (tied)
FIRSTS (The following players recorded their career first in a respective category)
Reception: Matt Bushman, Neil Pau’u, Micah Simon
Touchdown: Neil Pau’u
Rush attempt: Kavika Fonua, Jonah Trinnaman, Ula Tolutau
Tackle: Marvin Hifo, Chaz Ah You, Langi Tuifua, Isaiah Kaufusi, Khyiris Tonga
Interception: Zayne Anderson
Starts: Zayne Anderson, Matt Bushman, Tanner Jacobson
Head coach Kalani Sitake
“In the locker room I reminded them that we won. They obviously weren’t happy with their performance and that’s what I expect from those guys. I also want them to respect the game and know that wins are hard to come by. And we will build off this. It’s easier to build off a win in this sense than if we had lost. We won the game but we definitely want to work on being better and I look forward to doing that.”
“I think the penalties were drive killers for us, whether it was holding or chop blocks. It’s simple mistakes that we’re making and we can’t blame anybody but ourselves. We made some mistakes when we shouldn’t have them, they had no bearing on the play. I think it was Kavika (Fonua) that busted a run on us in the game and the hold had nothing to really do with that play. We have some guys that are still new to this and I think it was good that they got some experience so we can see it on film and fix this.”
“Tanner made some good calls up front on the line of scrimmage. I thought he did well with the team. We just didn’t make enough plays. We made way too many mistakes to even evaluate his performance. I thought he made some good throws and he had some bad ones as well, but that’s the game of football, especially in the quarterback position. But he was poised, I thought he held himself together really well and kept running the guys on the team and I don’t question him at all with his leadership skills or his playing ability.”
“I thought they were physical on the O-line. They had a lot of returning starters. Portland State did well against Washington last year and had some really good draft picks and I thought our D-line held their own. We had a lot of new guys in there. They didn’t create a lot of big plays and they didn’t really give us many drop passes, they tried to run a lot of quick gain so we had to make some adjustments. The only thing I was would say defensively is that we’ve got to get better on our third downs. They converted a lot of third downs on some drives and I think they converted some fourth downs as well, so we just need to get out of those and create more disruption and get some big plays. We had one turnover today and that’s not good enough, especially for our defense. There’s a lot of room for improvement in all three phases but I thought physically up front we were the guys on D-line and I was expecting that. I was expecting more form the offensive line and we have a really good team that’s coming up next week that we have to be ready for.”
“Squally Canada did some really good things during camp and I think that going into this season he had more experience. I see a good mixture in those guys. I don’t think competition ever stops so we’ll see how it goes with committee.”
“There were a lot of guys that we were hoping to play this week and it just worked out that some of them were able to go and some weren’t. Through the hardships of fall camp that’s what happens. We plan on having a lot of those guys back. We plan on having Butch (Pau’u) back next week.”
“I thought Fred (Warner) did good. I thought he was disruptive and he was active. We’ve been playing him as linebacker too so he did some really good things as outside linebacker. His pass rushing skills are nice but I thought he did a really good job holding up the run game. He got bigger and stronger and I thought he held up in the run game against the big, physical line. That’s what we saw in fall camp and just hope it continues.”
“It was really good. Just to get their feet wet a little bit as far as getting out there and playing the game. It was good for a lot of guys to see how their fitness level is and their condition. I thought we did really good with our guys playing in the hot sun and I was really impressed with their conditioning.”
“The main thing from this game was just the mental breakdown. That’s the issue that we had and the mistakes. We can fix those. I don’t think it had anything to do with ability or talent. When you make those types of mistakes, you’re not really able to evaluate or even improve or be effective with your talent.”
“We practice in the heat. Not to over think it, I think we just made some stupid mistakes and we will enjoy the win, but we will fix the mistakes and try to be better next week. And as it’s been said, a lot of improvement happens between week one and week two and we’re really looking forward to that being true.”
Quarterback Tanner Mangum
“This was definitely not our best performance. It was a little too sloppy. We had way too many penalties, shooting ourselves in the foot — especially on big plays. That’s something that we don’t want to have happen. We have to get better than that.”
“We did some good things. We busted out some big runs, we had some big catches. There were flashes there. We’ve just got to learn from the positives in preparation for this next week.”
“It’s football. You never know what you’re going to get. They were a good defense. It’s just part of the game. You have to take what happens and learn from it and move on. We’ll clean it up. You’ve got to be able to enjoy the win and be happy with the victory. Any time you can get a win is a good thing. We’ll watch the film and work on it this next week.”
“You’ve got to respect every opponent. Obviously, any game is good for confidence. It’s good for us to be able to play today and see what we can work on. I think we can use it to our advantage — to clean things up and be better for next week. We’re excited for the opportunity and challenge to play LSU next week. We’re looking forward to cleaning up this week and moving on to next Saturday.”
“We’re going to focus on our strengths. You take the good and the bad. Each game is going to be tough. You’re going to have good plays. You’re going to have bad plays. That’s part of the game. You have to appreciate the victory and the chance to be on this team. The good and the bad, you have to enjoy it.”
Tight end Matt Bushman
“We always have extra things to do: things up our sleeves and extra plays. We wanted to establish a run game, especially in the second half. We wanted to run the ball and show that we could. Once we establish the run more and more, more passes will come, we’ll split the field more and have execution.”
“It was an awesome experience playing in front of a crowd like that. I was a little nervous at first, but after the first run I felt good. I’m happy we go the win and excited to go into game two.”
Wide receiver Talon Shumway
“When it comes down to it, it’s all the same, ending up in the end zone twice, in my opinion. We are glad to have the win and contribute a little bit.”
“We’ll take away positives and negatives and there are things we wish we would have done better in the game, but really we showcased our ability to win. Nothing can be taken lightly — we faced an excellent opponent. We have work to do — you always have work to do. We’ll buckle down and get ready for the next one.”
Linebacker Fred Warner
“We’re such a competitive group. We want to do our best and dominate the game. We had a lot of positives in this game, but we’ve got a lot of things to work on. I think we did pretty well. It’s such a competitive group”
“I think we did pretty well on first and second down. Third and fourth downs, that’s something we want to clean up.”
“I thought they played really well. Khyiris (Tonga) came in and did really well for us behind me. Chaz Ah You came in. We practice hard and we’re prepared. It was a lot of fun playing with Sione (Takitaki) out there. He has a lot of energy and he’s disruptive. You can see that on the stat sheet.”
Linebacker Matt Hadley
“I thought it was fun and different. The game was a lot faster. I didn’t expect it to be that fast. I feel like I did well for my first game, but there is definitely room for improvement and that will just come with time so the more reps as the weeks go on I should be able to get better and better as it goes.”
“I think we did well. I think there are definitely things that we need to work on both offensively and defensively but that’s normal. First game, we are just glad we got out with a win. Now we are just looking forward to next week and getting better. We will keep making those little adjustments that we need to make.”
“Portland State is a good team and they did a really good job at spreading us out. The quarterback was able to find seams here and there. Little, quick five- or six-yard pops. Their runs they were able to capitalize on. They came to play as we expected. They are a good team.”
“It’s going to be fun being able to go up against a school that has the history that they have. We are excited. I am excited to just go up and compete with them.”
Portland State head coach Bruce Barnum
“I knew this defense would be the best we would see all year. They’re more talented than us, I can say that. They’ve done a nice job recruiting. Their student athletes are big, strong and they can run. We knew we were the underdog. We thought our strengths might have been some speed. You saw a couple plays early on the edge, but it turned out the only time we really put something together was when we said ‘OK, let’s stop out-thinking them and go tempo.’ Then all of a sudden, they got tired. You get a guy tired, he’s normal, he becomes like everybody else. And when they started rolling our people on that drive, we tried to keep up the tempo thing. The biggest thing that I was dealing with was my freshman quarterback. I think I gave him too much too early. That first quarter he looked like a prom with no date. Then we said ‘let’s back off.’ We cut the package back and left more personnel out there, and were able to put that drive together in the second quarter.”
“We’re not bad offensively. My defense is younger than my offense except at quarterback. We’ve always been able to piece some points together. And again, you know the heat gets to them too, and when I saw that we put it together and we went for it twice on fourth down that drive, and those are big plays. It was good to see my freshman quarterback execute that against BYU. It was perfect to set up the rest of our season. It’s easy to gauge a football team by your first game. I don’t care who you’re playing against. Last year I could have told you that we were going to struggle after the first football game. Right now, we’re going to win some games this year. I have a pretty good football team.”
(On local player Braxton Winterton)
“Braxton Winterton is everything I hoped he was when we recruited him. What that mission offers a student athlete you can’t buy. We had it from Kuresa and I’ve got it from other returned missionaries that leadership. He stepped right in and was part of the locker room and was respected because of how he acted. That helps and he is vying for a spot. He played today and he’s a guy who will have plenty of opportunities to play football for us.”