DICKSON: I know he has to recover or BYU has no shot at the playoffs.

Look, just about everything we know about Bear beyond the stats and the “man of few words” post-game comments comes from the coaches and his teammates. They tell us how great Bear is and what a leader he’s been. What a great teammate he is and how competitive he is. If any of that is true, then you’ll see a determined Bear Bachmeier on Saturday against Baylor. He needs to be sharp because the Bears are on a roll since firing head coach Dave Aranda. They are a dangerous team. The offense should be pretty close to full strength with LJ Martin ready for a heavier load. That should help Bachmeier a lot.

GURNEY: I think he definitely will recover. Bear has been ahead of the curve since he joined BYU’s football program, and what he’s accomplished has been nothing short of extraordinary. Yes, his performance versus Utah was a big setback when considering the gravity that game holds, not just for rivalry purposes, but for a potential College Football Playoff bid. But still, there’s no reason to believe that terrible performance will become the rule for Bear and I expect him to bounce back in a big way.

2. Do you put more of the loss to the Utes on the players or the coaches?

GURNEY: This one has to go on the players, although there is a good case to be made to assign the loss mostly to the coaching staff. On defense players were in the right schemes, but didn’t execute. Many will point to Devon Dampier’s scramble out of would should have been an Isaiah Glasker sack during a critical 3rd-and-7 situation. Sure, Glasker needs to wrap him up, but other players whiffed, too, and especially Cade Uluave, who took a far too aggressive dip to the inside when Dampier shifted to the outside, allowing the Ute QB to run for the first down. This is just one of several examples.

Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo

DICKSON: It’s always an interesting question and to be completely honest, since the players are all being paid I’ve seen a shift on social media where disgruntled fans equally blame the coaches  and players. Aside from that, the coaches are ultimately responsible for the program. But is it Kelly Poppinga’s fault when he calls a play and a player misses a tackle? Is it Aaron Roderick’s fault when he calls a play and Bear Bachmeier throws an interception? At some point, the players have to take responsibility for their execution. The reason the past three weeks has been rough is because the execution has been lacking. The coaches can certainly train and influence the players but ultimately the players have to step up and do their job.

3 What chances to give BYU to run the table in the next three weeks against Baylor, Kansas and Cincinnati?

DICKSON: If BYU plays a cleaner game and tackles and executes better than the past three weeks, it can go 3-0. But as we’ve seen this year already, performance can vary. You have to credit the guys on the other sidelines sometimes. UCF played their best game all year against the Cougars but hasn’t been able to duplicate that output since then. Every week is an opportunity for BYU to play better. We hear the mantra “get one percent better every day” but frankly, that hasn’t been happening in Provo. To beat Baylor, Kansas and Cincinnati there needs to be improvement at every level, on every unit.

Is that just another way of saying its 50-50 that BYU goes 3-0? Probably.

GURNEY: I don’t believe the Cincinnati game poses that big of a challenge, but I could see BYU dropping games to either Baylor or Kansas, but probably not both. That said, I fully anticipate BYU to run the table from here on out, and largely due to the expectation of LJ Martin returning to form. Should Martin again provide 100+ yards rushing per game then it will solve a lot of problems, and I do expect that to occur beginning this week versus a dangerous Baylor team. I giving percentages, but it’s higher than 50% that BYU runs the table to finish off the regular season when considering the strength of the opponent and the LJ Martin factor, but probably not higher than 70%.

4. Delaney Gibb’s triple-double performance against Montana was the first in the BYU women’s basketball program in 40 years. Where you rank Gibb as an all-time player for the Cougars?

GURNEY: If she continues on her current pace, and there’s little reason to believe she won’t, then she’ll easily finish as a top 10 player all-time for the BYU women’s basketball program. Of course she could be due to at least some improvement from her already exemplary form, which could put her in the discussion of the best every to play for the Cougars. She currently sits at 1,111 points scored, and is just barely over the halfway point of her career, and that would vault her easily into the top 5 all-time scorers in program history, but then you throw in her pace to provide a top-5 all-time assist mark, and yeah, it’s difficult to believe Gibb won’t be in the GOAT (greatest of all-time) discussion by the time her career wraps up.

DICKSON: It pretty amazing what Gibb has accomplished in just over two seasons at BYU, including her play with Canada’s senior national team. She’s definitely one of the best to ever don a Cougar uniform and her numbers will bear that out of the next two years. What could put her solidly into the Top 10 and even higher would be leading BYU to some NCAA Tournament wins. I think Lee Cummard is surrounding Gibb with some pretty good players and a realistic goal is to get to the second week of the NCAA’s in the next two seasons. She’s a great shooter and playmaker, and I think she plays with a lot of passion as well.

5. What has impressed you most about the BYU men’s basketball team in its 3-0 start to the season?

DICKSON: Ever since the transfer portal started dominating college sports I have wondered how coaches can build team chemistry when they’re turning over their roster every season. Kevin Young did a lot of team building activities this summer but several of the players didn’t even join the program until a few months ago. Yet one of the big keys I’ve seen so far is that this team does have plenty of team chemistry, not just on the court but off the court as well. To get the buy-in you need, a coach has to really accelerate this process and I think Young and his staff have done a tremendous job.

GURNEY: What jumps out at me when watching this team play is that it makes sense. The players fit together, much more than at this stage last season and maybe even at any time last season. I think Kevin Young and his staff have done a very good job learning from last year’s mistakes and forming a team that simply makes more sense with working well with one another in producing a consistent flow on offense and perhaps even better defensive performances, although the latter still holds a lot of question marks. Of course returning Rob Wright III for a second straight season is the biggest factor here when considering he runs the entire show from his point position. But from my perspective, there’s a lot to be optimistic about.