Mendenhall trying to get points across with BYU

It has been said offense wins games, but defense wins championships.

Brigham Young football coach Bronco Mendenhall apparently doesn't agree with that philosophy.

When he took over as Cougars coach three years ago, Mendenhall and his staff conducted a study to discover which statistic most determined the outcome of a game.

His research, which went back 25 years and focused first on BYU, then on college football in general, revealed that points scored, not points allowed, was the top factor in influencing the outcome of a game.

Points allowed was the second-most important element.

"We designed a system, and we think the fewer statistics we focus on, the cleaner it is for our program," Mendenhall said Tuesday in his weekly conference call. "Unless a statistic relates to (winning), we don't look at it."

Mendenhall said turnover margin is the third-most relevant statistic to winning, and number of penalties is the 10th-most important factor.

Mendenhall's philosophy certainly applied last season, when BYU won its last 10 games, capped by a 38-8 rout of Oregon in the Las Vegas Bowl, went 10-2 overall and 8-0 in the Mountain West Conference.

The Cougars ranked sixth in the nation in scoring offense (36.7 points per game), 16th in the country in scoring defense (allowing 15.3 ppg) and finished fourth in the country in turnover margin (plus 1.17 turnovers per game).

BYU won its 11th consecutive game, 20-7 over Arizona, to start this season and had the second-longest active winning streak in the country before falling 27-17 to No. 13 UCLA on Saturday.

"The standards we've set after winning 11 in a row are very high here, and we want to keep them there," Mendenhall said. "We're disappointed we didn't win, and it's been a unique week with how it's felt not to win, but we're anxious to start another streak."

Mendenhall said two early losses last year, to Arizona and Boston College, helped shape BYU's season.

He said the loss to UCLA could do the same this season.

"Our game with UCLA was very similar (to last year's 16-13 loss to Arizona and 30-23 double-overtime loss to Boston College), with a last-second comeback and a very close game," he said.

In his second college start, BYU sophomore quarterback Max Hall completed 30 of 53 passes with two touchdowns and finished with 391 yards passing to 126 for the Bruins' Ben Olson. BYU finished with 435 yards of total offense to 236 for UCLA.

"We have a football team that won't quit, and they responded to a very good team in that setting," Mendenhall said. "I really like the way, being down 20-0, we showed resolve, perseverance and heart.

"I also thought our quarterback played extremely well in terms of growth and maturity, and our defense played physical from beginning to end."

BYU will play at Tulsa (1-0) on Saturday.