LOGAN -- Jan Jorgensen's uncle, with a lot of family in town for a weekend wedding, spent a boatload of cash for tickets at Romney Stadium.

It should say something that BYU's defensive lineman wonders if his relative received his money's worth Friday night watching the highly ranked Cougars play downtrodden Utah State.

"I'm a little frustrated," said the Jan-imal, who was a picture of complete focus in the first quarter. It was a trait the Cougars carried as a whole for the first 15 minutes before deciding to get all soft and politically correct.

Afterward, several players even had the nerve to call the Aggies a good team.

Puh-lease.

It's hard to say what's scarier from the BYU perspective from a drawn-out night where the sagebrush grows. A star player nearly crumbling? A lack of killer instinct? How about the notion that the Cougars never called off their starters and still couldn't totally dispose of a far-below-average team?

Linebacker David Nixon went down late in the game after getting stepped on, but it turned out to be just a bruise.

It was the Aggies who should have been battered to the point that they considered scrapping football.

Asking several Cougars, they agreed independently that BYU wasn't too nice.

I'd beg to differ.

BYU kept in its starters the entire game, yet couldn't keep a really bad offense from scoring.

BYU had so many chances to, in Jorgensen's words, "put the hammer down," and simply kept whiffing like a klutz in shop class.

Drives sputtered fast, as BYU even totaled four fewer first downs. Mitch Payne seemed to be getting more field goal tries than PAT's, and even had one blocked. Receivers dropped Max Hall's passes, and he also uncharacteristically threw a couple of not-even-close interceptions. The grocery list of misplaced energy could go on.

And it did, so much that Aggie fans had the courage to chant "over-rated" in the direction of the country's eighth-ranked team.

It didn't have to be that way.

The score was quickly 14-0, thanks to a 76-yard pass from Hall to Austin Collie -- one in which the receiver did most of the work by showing his speed. Brandon Bradley had a 38-yard fumble recovery for a score a few minutes later.

It was 24-0 after the first quarter.

The Cougars failed to score in the second and fourth quarters.

Did we mention they were playing Utah State?

It's right now that you have to feel a little sorry for head coach Bronco Mendenhall, and what he's trying to accomplish.

For starters, this is clearly a team that's going to get everyone's best shot. The coach has spoken of wanting to steer clear of the shenanigans of running up scores and chasing higher rankings. A brave, valiant goal.

But the high road (not often taken in high-level college sports) can be filled with brutal oversight. Like, letting an opponent feel good about itself for way too long. It could be costly against a better team, of which several remain compared to these good-effort, marginal-talent Aggies.

Second, isn't it amusing that a 34-14 win seems like a disappointment? But for about 45 of the 60 minutes, control wasn't exactly BYU's. Every game can't be 59-0, and it seems that players are wearing thin of talking post-game about their victorious shortcomings.

Third, and perhaps the toughest ongoing hurdle, is whether BYU is getting too cautious.

The increased outside attention, the ranking, the hostility directed toward them at road games -- the challenge is getting clearer.

It's going to be hard to improve and not merely protect.

This team's tight in a good way, and it has to avoid getting tight in the worst way.

Early BYU looked fresh, coming off the bye week, and set for the kill. It intimidated, hitting hard -- even after the whistle.

Jorgensen earned a 15-yard penalty when a referee stopped play cold, and he still hunted down the USU quarterback. It was obvious, even in a fairly soundproof press box, that action was halted.

But there went the junior, with so much pride to be on the same field his dad suited up as a collegian, bear-crawling until he drilled Diondre Borel well after everyone else had stopped.

A bone-headed play, perhaps, but at least it came with a deliberate focus: attack.

Too often the rest of the night, the Cougars looked disinterested and distracted, or strangely on the ropes when the home team forced the action. USU even scored the last 14 points, controlling play against the Cougars' best.

Lesson learned?

BYU has every skill to be nasty and dominant, like Mike Tyson in his prime.

But there's a Buster Douglas lying out there somewhere if a puncher's chance is afforded.

• Jason Franchuk can be reached at jfranchuk@heraldextra.com