RECAP: Implosion in Fort Worth
Mercifully, I was at a family gathering during most of Saturday's BYU-TCU game, and I missed the entirety of the event—following along only through haphazard Twitter updates. And I trailed off even from those once I saw the halftime score. In the annals of ugly BYU football losses, this one will go down as a special type of disaster—one in which virtually nothing went well on either side of the ball.
Because (some BYU sports blogger, I know) I didn't actually watch or listen to this game, I don't have a ton of observations to offer. After perusing the box score, though, there are some clear points to cover. The 44-11 final score is an obvious one, but there are plenty more. After such a devastating loss, what do we know about this team?
The Good:
It's hard to take away many positives from a 33-point loss, but there were a couple individual performances that I thought merited praise.
Eddie Heckard had a genuinely spectacular interception and played very well in general. In fact, his coverage was one of the few positives from an otherwise miserable defensive effort. His veteran presence in the defensive backfield has been enormously important this year. Of the more than 20 players the Cougars acquired in the portal this offseason, Heckard has arguably been the most brilliant success.
Siale Esera recorded the Cougars' other interception of the day, and acquitted himself nicely in general. Esera and Harrison Taggart have been pressed into increased roles as a result of injuries in the linebacker room. So far, they've performed well. Neither is Ben Bywater, but nobody expected them to be at this stage. They have filled in effectively, and that's as much as can be asked of them for now.
Chase Roberts is BYU's most important offensive player, full stop. He's a dynamic playmaker and a consistently reliable target for Kedon Slovis. The offense flows better the more touches he gets. And while his (and everyone else's) impact was limited in the Cougars' loss to TCU, better days are ahead if Kedon can feed him a steady diet of receptions.
The Bad:
I was tempted to just write 'Everything' here and be done with it, because not much went well against the Horned Frogs, but some specific observations stand out. Foremost among them is the continued poor play of the offensive line. Simply put, there's no excuse for the Cougar offense to struggle as badly as it does, and the line is largely to blame. Kingsley Suamataia continues to struggle with injuries and is therefore, at least for now, exempt from this criticism, but virtually all of BYU's other offensive linemen are struggling significantly. This group is too talented, too athletic, and too experienced to be this bad. Therefore, I have to conclude that coaching plays a major role in their struggles. Darrell Funk doesn't seem to be doing a very good job getting his guys ready. At the end of the day, individual mistakes are the fault of individual players; an entire position group underperforming, though, is the fault of the position coach. I hate calling for a coach's head, particularly halfway through a season, but we're now working on a season and a half of the BYU offensive line looking much worse on the field than it does on paper. Something has to change, and I think it might be Funk.
The athleticism of BYU's receiving corps has become a concern as the season has progressed. It was blatantly obvious against Arkansas and Kansas, and again in this game, that the Cougar pass-catchers had a really hard time getting separation from the defensive backs covering them. In the Arkansas game, better conditioning and discipline on the part of BYU eventually won out and the Razorbacks' DB's fell victim to fatigue and the Cougars' momentum. But against Kansas and especially against TCU, the Cougars' receivers could never quite get open. Kedon Slovis didn't play great against the Frogs—in fact, he turned in his worst performance of the season—but he wasn't helped by the fact that his receivers couldn't win one-on-one battles. Chase Roberts was the best of the group as usual, but even he had trouble.
The defense doesn't get a pass here, either. I observed last week that the unit's distinct improvement under Jay Hill has masked serious weaknesses that still remain. The Cougars still largely lack the athleticism of legacy P5 defensive units, and a rash of injuries has made things worse. I hate singling out individual players for criticism in these sections, but Malik Moore has been a particular disappointment so far—enough so that his struggles merit specific mention. After playing himself off the field for the last couple of games, Moore was thrust back into the starting lineup for this matchup due to injuries. He was totally ineffective, eventually being pulled from the game after missing a tackle on a long touchdown and failing to record a single statistic. With key returning players like Moore struggling, and with critical contributors like Tanner Wall and Ben Bywater hurt (and possibly out for the season), Jay Hill's unit is in bad shape. It's not all a disaster—Tyler Batty, Max Tooley, and AJ Vongphachahn continue to perform well and youngsters like Crew Wakely, Ethan Slade, and Raider Damuni have contributed meaningfully—but it's clear that in Coach Hill's first season at the helm, he's still dealing with some of the depth, talent, and schematic struggles he inherited from Ilaisa Tuiaki's staff.
My biggest complaint about the way BYU performed against TCU has nothing to do with individual players or coaching schemes or injuries. My biggest complaint is that the Cougars looked flat-out unprepared on both sides of the ball. This is something I addressed at length last year during the depths of BYU's four-game losing streak, but I want to bring it up again. It wasn't just this game, either—the Cougars got off to horrendous starts against SUU, Arkansas, Kansas, and Cincinnati as well. It's as if they are genuinely surprised by what they see from each new opponent. I've criticized this coaching staff's pregame preparation in the past, and it looks like those issues are still very present.
Well, that's a lot more analysis than I expected to be able to put together given that I didn't actually watch the game. The good news is that the Cougars are still 4-2. The bad news is that they have the single most difficult remaining schedule in college football. Things could get pretty ugly from here, but I still think bowl eligibility is possible.