It seems like it's been a lifetime since the BYU football team was 3-0, coming off a massive road win over SEC foe Arkansas and on the cusp of being ranked. The Cougars have been on a rollercoaster since then, but they finally seem to have hit the lowest of low points on Saturday in Morgantown. The West Virginia Mountaineers dominated every phase of the game en route to beating BYU 37-7 in a game that, frankly, wasn't even that close. With Kedon Slovis recuperating from a hand injury suffered in the Texas game, the Cougars turned to former #1 overall JUCO quarterback Jake Retzlaff to lead the offense. Retzlaff's effort was respectable—he certainly wasn't the reason for the team's struggles, at least—but his efforts didn't particularly matter. The rest of the team was a mess, on both sides of the ball. There aren't many positives to take away from this game, so I'm going to discuss what exactly went wrong and where the Cougars can—and must—improve if they want to reach bowl eligibility.
The offense, despite Jake Retzlaff's best efforts, was once again a disaster. The Cougars have still only rushed for 100 yards as a team twice this season—in their wins over Arkansas and Texas Tech—and they managed just 67 against the Mountaineers. Bizarrely, that's one of their better showings this year—against outputs of 46 yards against SUU and just nine against Kansas, 67 seems downright respectable. Of those 67 yards, 37 came from Aidan Robbins (who, in the continued absence of LJ Martin, is the Cougars' only really viable running back) and a further 26 came from Retzlaff himself, who adds a dimension of mobility that Slovis doesn't bring. These are paltry, pathetic rushing numbers. Long gone are the days of Taysom Hill, Jamaal Williams, and Tyler Allgeier.
But of course, BYU's rushing struggles really aren't the fault of Aidan Robbins. He's a gifted, powerful runner in the mold of a Tyler Allgeier or Chris Brooks. But the Cougars' offensive line has sunk so low that he has been unable to impact the offense at all. The line is a disaster in every conceivable way. Ten weeks into the season, individual linemen still don't know where they're supposed to go and who they're supposed to block on certain plays. They play without energy and passion. They look lost, confused, and discouraged. And as a result, the offense has ground completely to a halt. This isn't a talent issue—I still think this is one of the more impressive lines, on paper, that the Cougars have had in recent years. But then, I said that last year, too. The common thread appears to be BYU offensive lines that look talent-heavy on paper but are a mess on the field. And there's one very obvious culprit for those issues—offensive line coach Darrell Funk. Now, I don't know Coach Funk. I don't know much about him. But I do know that in the past two seasons, we've lost Clark and Campbell Barrington to the portal and the O-line has become a hollow, useless facsimile of its former glory during the Grimes/Mateos years. I hate calling for a coach's job, but as with Ilaisa Tuiaki last year, it's become painfully obvious that a change has to be made. Funk needs to be replaced. Watching the O-line's descent into chaos over the last two years, there's no other possible conclusion.
The defense is a somewhat different story. Last week, Jay Hill's unit graduated from "good compared to last year" to "straight-up good" as they matched their Texas counterparts blow-for-blow (and were roundly let down by the offense). But six straight games against P5 opponents have taken their toll. Ilaisa Tuiaki and company didn't leave the cupboard totally bare—the defense still has some clearly P5-caliber talent—but the Cougars lack the depth needed to handle the injuries that come with a brutal schedule like this. Nowhere has that been more evident than on the defensive line, where the Cougars were without the talents of John Nelson, Caden Haws, and John Henry Daley against West Virginia. The result was a cobbled-together collection of backups thrust into starting roles and gashed repeatedly by the Mountaineers' rushing attack. Tyler Batty is one of the best pass rushers in the Big 12 right now, but he's not much of a run-stuffer and West Virginia's coaches realized pretty quickly that as long as they took him out of the play, nobody else on the D-line posed much of a threat. It was a tough game for a very banged-up defense, but take heart—Jay Hill is only just getting started, and so far, the overall results have looked promising.
This was a miserable game all around, and it's hard to find much to like about where this BYU team is. The Cougars have three games to get bowl eligible, and their next game—against Iowa State in Provo—seems to be their best shot to get that magical sixth win. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State figure to be losses, and lopsided ones at that. This is a broken, hurting, struggling BYU team. Hopefully, they have enough in the tank to beat a very beatable Iowa State team this coming Saturday and clinch a bowl game. That alone would be a satisfying achievement in the Cougars' first P5 season.