PROVO — You know BYU football is back when fans boo decisions to punt rather than go for it and an opposing coach plays the officiating fix card.

BYU ran its record to 6-0 Saturday with a 21-3 win over New Mexico. It was a hard-fought battle that Bronco Mendenhall predicted would be physical and tough.

It was all that.

This series, which now features two head coaches in Rocky Long and Bronco Mendenhall, once Lobo coaching brothers, was a smash-nose football extravaganza from beginning to end and Mendenhall spent plenty of time afterwards paying respect to Long and his players.

The Lobos elected to attack the Cougars with star back Rodney Ferguson, held out a week ago, tossing a major test at BYU's run defense while shortening the game to a zippy 2 hours and 36 minutes.

UMN surprised BYU's offensive coaches by electing to not stack the box and come at QB Max Hall. Instead, the Lobos dropped back into coverage and played far more zone in the secondary than expected.

Why?

Perhaps Hall is significantly protected and gets the ball off too quickly. The Lobos evidently wanted to protect their flank.

BYU surprised almost everyone by not running Harvey Unga until just under 11 minutes remained the first half after trying to sling the ball around the field when the Lobos weren't bringing extra defenders to the line. It was BYU's second run play of the quarter. The other? A reverse run to Austin Collie.

Instead, the Cougars opened the game passing like crazy. It got a little silly when BYU ran a series of failed shots (five incompletions) to Austin Collie and Michael Reed, part of a BYU final drive of the first half that ended in a missed 39-yard field goal. Most the success of that drive was Unga bowling over Lobos.

"I was surprised I didn't get a carry in the first quarter, but I don't second-guess the coaches," said Unga.

"We could have got him more carries early," said his coach, Lance Reynolds.

Once Unga started rolling, averaging 4 yards a carry (22 carries 95 yards), BYU got on the scoreboard after trailing 3-0. BYU failed to score in the first quarter for the first time this season.

That certainly frustrated some of the Cougar faithful, who lustily booed several BYU decisions to punt or try a field goal on fourth and short yardage situations throughout the game.

"It appeared I wasn't popular with the fans today," said Mendenhall, "But I'll live with that."

"This game is indicative of what to expect the rest of the season," said Mendenhall of the grind-it-out type atmosphere in LaVell Edwards Stadium.

The BYU coach, now enjoying a 16-game home win streak and the nation's longest win streak at 15 games, said he wouldn't change a thing, 21-3 was just dandy.

A year ago in Albuquerque, the Lobos trailed just 28-24 with seven minutes to play and if the Cougars hadn't gotten six UNM turnovers, they'd have lost the game.

On the other end of the stadium, Long didn't hide his displeasure with an officiating call that nullified a fourth-quarter touchdown, a screen pass and run by Bryant Williams that would have drawn the Lobos to within four points at 14-10 with just over seven minutes to play.

On that play, an official flagged right tackle Bryon Bell for a block in the back of a Cougar defender, who appeared to slip and fall. Long called it a momentum changer — a key element in the outcome of the game when the Cougars led just 14-3.

Long called it "criminal" and "ridiculous."

Strong words.

"It's amazing when one team has pull and the other one doesn't," Long said to reporters as he walked out of the media interview room.

Ouch.

I agree with Long on the call — it was ticky and weak — but unlawful?

Long will probably get over it when he sees film of BYU defensive ends Ian Dulan and Jan Jorgensen pulled down and tackled just steps from making a play most of the second half.

It was like calf roping at a rodeo.

Yeah, we're back to conference play circa the early '80s, when the Cougars rattled off championships, enjoyed perches in the rankings and complaints were plenty, from opponents and fans.

Norm Chow was once a weekly whipping boy — even after wins.

"The thing people don't know, is this isn't easy. It's tough. Conference games are tough and they are going to get tougher," said coach Reynolds.

"In 1984 we trailed several times in games with just two minutes left; one of those was at Pittsburgh. We have to improve, we must improve, but it isn't easy to win these games; other guys are doing good things to try and stop you."

Indeed. BYU's third down conversions Saturday was 4 of 12. They once led the NCAA this season at about 79 percent.

It gets no easier this week for Mendenhall's squad when they travel to Fort Worth for a Thursday night game with TCU that features the nation's No. 1 defense. The Frogs escaped with a 13-7 win over Colorado State in Fort Collins Saturday — the same kind of grind-it-out physical game.

Mendenhall said the focus for his Cougars was to simply manage points and the Lobos got just three.

He told his team the win over the Lobos was his most satisfying win of the season so far.

"The difference in the game today was turnovers," said Mendenhall.

"We took the ball away twice and never gave it up. As we go down the stretch of who wins this conference it will be who gets the most turnovers. Turnovers are the most relevant statistic on the night."

And it'll be so, too, Thursday in Texas.