Even Brigham Young football coach Bronco Mendenhall is hearing the whispers that are circulating around the Mountain West Conference that his team is a throwback to an era when the Cougars won 20 conference titles from 1974 to 2001.
Mendenhall wasn’t at BYU at the time, but he’s hearing the comments from good sources.
“There are some people who were here at the time and I’m listening to them talk about our team’s execution and the feeling that the program is returning to that level,” Mendenhall said. “I know I’m optimistic about the direction of our program.”
Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry will find out first-hand Saturday, when his Falcons host the Cougars at noon.
“I would certainly agree that this team is a throwback to the old BYU teams,” DeBerry said. “In their last three games, they’ve scored 130 points and given up only 41.”
There isn’t any whispering going on as to why the Cougars (5-2, 3-0 MWC) are prowling once again. Everybody around the league is shouting about senior quarterback John Beck.
“He’s the best we’ve played against all year so far,” San Diego State coach Chuck Long said. “He’s very seasoned. What I like is the fact he took some lumps early in his career and has bounced right back up.”
DeBerry also had praise for the Cougars’ 6-foot-2, 216-pound leader.
“He’s close to becoming BYU’s second all-time leading passer,” DeBerry said. “He’s a tremendous competitor. If he gets knocked down, he gets back up and competes.”
Beck needs 598 yards passing to surpass Jim McMahon’s 9,536 yards, which rank second to Ty Detmer’s 15,031 on BYU’s all- time list. This season, Beck has thrown for 1,810 yards and 17 touchdowns in just six games. His total of 17 scoring passes and two rushing TDs are two more touchdowns than Air Force has scored in six games.
Beck said he always wanted to play for BYU, but wasn’t offered a scholarship immediately out of high school in Arizona.
“They told me they already had some quarterbacks,” Beck said after Tuesday night’s practice. “But I still had a feeling inside that I’d be at BYU.”
Beck went to Provo, Utah, for classes during his first summer after high school. He then was offered a scholarship by the Cougars before heading out on his two-year Mormon mission to Lisbon, Portugal.
“Everybody says the two quarterback schools in the nation are BYU and the University of Miami,” Beck said. “I never looked at coming here with all the previous quarterbacks as putting pressure on myself.
“My belief is that we’re a very good team, with a very strong senior class of players,” Beck said. “A lot of us have been playing together since we were freshmen. We experienced some losses in the early years. We’ve been through some hard times, but all anybody thinks about now is getting victories.”
Mendenhall said Beck “grew up wanting to be a BYU quarterback. … John has proven he can throw the ball, move the team and score points.”
But statistics alone are not what will get Beck mentioned in the same breath as previous BYU stars, including Robbie Bosco (8,400 yards passing), Steve Young (8,817 total yards), Detmer and McMahon.
“The best indicator that he should be measured against the others is a conference championship,” Mendenhall said. “He’s already there statistically.”
But it’s not just Beck powering the Cougars. Star running back Curtis Brown has 13 career 100-yard rushing games, a school record. Brown’s 2,717 rushing yards are 253 short of the Cougars’ career record of 2,970 set by Jamal Willis.
Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
