RECAP: Of all the BYU football wins, that was...one of them
Have a seat, Cougar faithful. It's time to have a serious talk about this team and its future after seeing the results of five games. This could get hairy--if you have something you want to get off your chest, just hit me up @JFloyd314 and we can talk. I'm here for you.
It's hard to know exactly how to feel right now as a BYU fan. Happy about a rivalry win? Sure. Excited to have the Old Wagon Wheel for the foreseeable future? Absolutely. But I'd be lying if I said this 38-26 BYU victory was fun to watch, and what we saw on the field, especially from the defense, raises serious questions about this team's ceiling going forward. For perhaps the first time this season, the defense really didn't have injuries as an excuse--Tyler Batty and Earl Tuioti-Mariner were both healthy and started on the D-line, while Max Tooley was cleared to play at LB and contributed extensively. Malik Moore is out indefinitely with a broken hand, but frankly, the secondary wasn't the issue tonight. In fact, Micah Harper and Talan Alfrey played so well that Moore's absence was scarcely felt for most of the game. So what happened against the Aggies? How could a BYU defense that locked down #9 Baylor's rush attack somehow allow Utah State, a team that scored zero offensive points against FCS Weber State in a 35-7 loss, to rush for 204 yards and score 26 points? And what, if anything, can be done to fix things moving forward? Let's do a little digging.
The Good:
You wouldn't know it from certain sectors of BYU fan Twitter, but there was actually a lot to be excited about in this game. Young players shone brightly and established stars cemented their status.
I have to start by praising the BYU offensive line. Yes, Utah State's defense is appallingly bad, but so was USF's and the O-line has shown marked improvement since that game. Always effective at pass blocking, the big boys up front were significantly better blocking the run against Utah State. Chris Brooks had his first genuinely impactful performance since the USF game, enjoying large holes through which to run as he rang up 90 yards and a TD on just eleven carries--an 8.2 yard per carry average. In the USF game, Brooks' stats were inflated by a couple chunk plays. Tonight, he played a more smash-mouth style and generated big yards on nearly every touch. I'm not yet confident saying he's RB1 material--I still think that, if healthy, Miles Davis is the Cougars' best option--but Brooks definitely took a step forward against the Aggies.
Jaren Hall was once again magnificent. Seriously, I could nitpick if I really wanted to, but it's difficult to find any noticeable flaws in Hall's game. He's incredibly cool under pressure (not that he was pressured much by the Aggies) and virtually never makes bad decisions with the ball. Scouts from 15 NFL teams and one CFL team attended this game, and they had to be impressed with what they saw from Hall. He's done nothing but help his draft stock every time he's taken the field so far this season. If he continues on this course, it will be hard to keep him out of the first round. Weirdly, PFF gave him a fairly poor grade for this game, though I mostly chalk that up to the entire offense playing badly in the first half.
It's become almost trite to say at this point, but man, BYU has some serious depth at receiver. Tonight it was Kody Epps' turn to shine--he caught his third TD in as many games and finished with a team-best five catches for 86 yards, good enough for a 17.2 yard average. The BYU passing game is as great as ever, with a star QB and receivers who we didn't expect to become primary targets but have more than risen to the occasion. Fesi Sitake, WR coach and passing game coordinator, deserves all the credit in the world. He's quite arguably BYU's best assistant coach at this moment.
Max Tooley is a bonafide star at linebacker. In addition to recording his second pick-six of the season through just five games, Tooley flew around the field with a level of energy and violence which made him impossible to ignore. He is standing out more and more as a leader on this team. He wasn't perfect--he was ridiculously lucky not to be ejected for what appeared to be clear-cut targeting in the first quarter and later picked up an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for emotively throwing an Aggie player's shoe after what would have been a successful third-down stop. Still, his effort was there play after play, all night, in a game where his team desperately needed him.
Before I absolutely savage the defense in my "The Bad" section, I want to spotlight three other defensive players who really looked good to me against USU:
John Nelson is a guy I've mentioned before, especially if you follow me on Twitter, and he put on another impressive performance in this game. He made a couple of big plays in the backfield and generally posed problems all night for the Aggie O-line. He's developing into a very high-level defensive lineman and, still only a redshirt freshman, looks poised to have a very productive BYU career ahead of him. I really like the way he plays. Nelson recorded five tackles, including a run-stuffing TFL, and also tipped the pass that Max Tooley took back for a TD.
Jakob Robinson was a blanket in coverage for most of the game, using his great speed and hands to break up passes and lock down opposing receivers. He had a nice game against USU last year and looked great again in this one. The secondary was burned a couple of times throughout the game, but Robinson was consistent.
Micah Harper had yet another exceptional game, following up what I would consider a breakout performance last week against Wyoming. A fall camp injury set Harper back a little and kept him out of the starting lineup early, but he's played so well over the last couple of games that it's going to be hard not to start him going forward. He led the team in tackles against the Aggies and also forced a fumble (which fellow young, up-and-coming safety Talan Alfrey recovered). Whether in the backfield on a blitz or deep in coverage, Harper just plain makes plays.
The Bad:
Hoooo boy, here we go. It's time to talk about the rest of the defense--the guys I didn't shout out above. For the third straight game, the defense looked completely lost throughout the first half, particularly against the run. The Aggies weren't doing anything remarkable--other than the occasional wrinkle provided by quarterback Cooper Legas's mobility, their offensive scheme basically involved taking the ball out of their young backup QB's hands and stuffing it right up the defense's gut. Alarmingly, it worked quite well. Against an offense that failed to score a single point against FCS Weber State two games ago, the Cougars gave up chunk yardage on simple run plays, committed brainless penalties, and allowed 17 first-half points.
The USU offense actually outscored the BYU offense 17-10 in the first half--only Max Tooley's pick-six kept the game tied at halftime. Even more bizarrely, the Aggies more than doubled the Cougars' time of possession. It was a disgraceful, embarrassing defensive effort. Thankfully, halftime adjustments were made and the Aggies' offense mostly reverted to its familiar futility in the second half. Still, the fact that BYU's defense was totally absent from the first half for the third straight game should be cause for some serious concern.
On Twitter, I've seen various iterations of the sentiment that because the Cougars made successful halftime adjustments and dominated the second half in every conceivable way, there's nothing to worry about--the coaching staff clearly has a handle on things and we'll be fine. The only problem is that this idea has already been proven false. Against Oregon, all the halftime adjustments the coaching staff could muster didn't save the Cougars from annihilation because by the time they began to adjust, it was too late--the game was functionally over by halftime. That's what happens when you come into a game against a talented opponent without proper preparation. The things you can get away with against an atrocious USU team won't work against the likes of Notre Dame or Arkansas.
The offense doesn't get a pass here, either. The Cougars had a brilliant first possession--two long pass plays, the second of which was a Keanu Hill TD. After that, the next three BYU possessions were three-and-outs against one of the worst defenses in the country. The run game was ineffective and the passing game was hampered by some bizarre play calls. It's almost as if the coaches forget, occasionally, that they have one of the best QB's in the nation taking snaps. Their collection of screens, short passes in the flat, and underneath routes thrown behind the line of scrimmage looked far more suited to a true freshman in his first start than a potential first round draft pick. The timidity of the play calling, especially within the Cougars' own 25, was extremely frustrating. As with the defense, the offense improved substantially in the second half and pulled comfortably away. Still, though, a flat start by the offense will be fatal against Notre Dame. The Irish don't have the world's most inspiring offense and have lost their starting QB for the season, but their defense can play and has played with the best of the best.
I want to note something that has infuriated me about Kalani Sitake for virtually his entire BYU tenure. I hate even writing that sentence, because I love Coach Sitake. I love his coaching style, I love the way he connects to and genuinely loves his players, and I love the emphasis he places on the fans. Truly, he's the right coach for BYU at this moment and I am over-the-moon excited to see what he can do with Big XII resources. With all of that said, I hope it's clear that this criticism comes from a place of love and total respect. I'm not a better football mind than Kalani Sitake and I don't pretend to be.
HOWEVER, I and many other fans have been deeply frustrated by the way in which BYU has handled itself against overmatched opponents under Coach Sitake. Tonight is a great example: the Cougars had THREE different fourth quarter possessions INSIDE THE USU 23 and came away with exactly zero points. The reason? The coaching staff essentially decided they'd had enough and were content to simply chew clock and end the game. Run after run up the gut went absolutely nowhere. It's very hard to watch. Kalani has said himself that he doesn't really believe in style points, but frankly, he's dead wrong about that. When you play a team as terrible as Utah State, you can't just win. It's not enough to just survive. Games against weak opponents are an important opportunity for a good team to show how far removed it is from the bottom tier of college football. It's tough to see the Cougars play purposefully underwhelming football in the second half against bad teams to avoid running up the score. The Cougars really could have benefited from even one more touchdown, but never gave themselves a reasonable shot at getting it. Now, this particular game's consequences might be blunted by the fact that a ton of teams ranked higher than BYU either lost or won ugly against bad teams (lookin' at you, Georgia), but the coaches can't count on that. Style points do matter, and BYU has collected precious few of them over the last couple of seasons.
I don't think I've ever included special teams in my "The Bad" section in five straight games (or honestly, even back-to-back games) before, but this is the world we live in. Jake Oldroyd carried out PAT attempts last week against Wyoming, but the Cougars' lone field goal was made by backup Justen Smith. This suggested that after three straight critical misses, Oldroyd might be out as BYU's field goal man. Nope! The coaches trotted out Oldroyd again in this game, and the results were as bad as you might expect. Remember how I mentioned that the Cougars had three drives inside the Aggie 23 end without points during the fourth quarter? Yeah...two of those drives ended in Jake Oldroyd field goal attempts, which are currently only slightly more reliable than the NordStream gas pipeline. Oldroyd is now a stunning 1-7 on his last eight field goal attempts--his successful kick at the end of the first half of this game was his first (and so far only) made field goal since early in the Baylor game. It seems impossible that this is the same Oldroyd who went 13-13 on field goals in the 2020 season and was a finalist for the Lou Groza Award. Whatever is wrong with him, the coaches seem strangely committed to him--Kalani seemed to indicate pretty strongly in the postgame presser that Oldroyd is still the guy. Whether that will hold probably depends on whether he can beat the yips he's currently experiencing.
All right, that's quite enough. As you can tell, I had a lot to get off my chest after this game. A lot of these thoughts, frankly, could also apply to the Wyoming game. The Cougars have their most difficult stretch by far of the season next, taking on Notre Dame in Las Vegas next week and then coming home to face Arkansas. The Razorbacks played Alabama tougher than they had any right to today, but have otherwise looked iffy so far. Notre Dame had a stunning loss to Marshall in game 2, but the Irish have now won back to back games and their backup quarterback hung 45 points on the (admittedly mediocre) UNC defense. Notre Dame is a really, really talented team that seems to have fallen on some hard luck. It will be interesting to see how the Cougars prepare for the Irish and how they'll start the game. With the exception of the Oregon game two weeks ago, the Cougars have done a good job of rising to the occasion against good teams over the last couple of seasons. We saw it against Baylor in week 2 and I think we have a chance to see it again in Vegas next week. I certainly hope we do, because if we start like we did against the Aggies, we'll lose like we did against Oregon. I'm not going to give a score prediction this week; how the Notre Dame game turns out will depend entirely on how prepared the team decides to be.
Tweets of the game:
There were some guests from across the world of CFB in attendance for this game, and they had some thoughts about the environment at LaVell Edwards Stadium
The fans went through it during this game (the first thread from @SportyMcSports is pretty dang funny if you read the whole thing)
But in the end, Cosmo the Cougar stole the show and got some serious attention