RECAP: The Offense Joins the Party
For the first time in program history, the BYU football team is on the cusp of a full Power 5 schedule, with ten straight games against power conference opponents beginning with next week's trip to Arkansas. It's fortunate, then, that the Cougars were able to start the season with a couple of "tune up" games against significantly less talented opponents. As it turned out, they had quite a bit of tuning up to do, and there are still some unanswered questions looming over the team as they prepare for their first real test of the season, on the road against the Razorbacks. So what can we take away from a 41-16 clobbering of FCS Southern Utah?
The Good:
Kedon Slovis and the BYU offense finally seem to have found a groove, at least in the passing game. Slovis turned in a great performance overall, throwing for 348 yards and 4 TD's with a very solid passer rating of 195.1. He made just one mistake, a relatively meaningless first quarter interception. Overall, he looked significantly more comfortable (probably helped by a combination of improvements from the offensive line and SUU's much less formidable pass rush). He delivered the ball on time and made some extremely impressive throws, both from the pocket and on the run. He has some things to clean up and will need to continue acclimatizing himself to Aaron Roderick's offense, but he made serious strides from week 1 to week 2, and that's a good sign.
This game marked a return to form for Isaac Rex. The son of Cougar legend Byron Rex, Isaac broke out during the 2020 season, producing one of the best single-season performances ever by a BYU tight end and accomplishing the feat as a true freshman. However, an injury caused him to miss much of the 2021 season, and he struggled with his health during the Cougars' 2022 campaign as well. Rex's injury issues seem to be behind him now, and after a somewhat uneventful game 1, he absolutely exploded against SUU, hauling in four catches for 112 yards and a touchdown. It seemed like every play he made was explosive at a level he just wasn't capable of achieving last year. Isaac Rex is back, and opposing defenses should be very, very concerned.
The Cougars' defensive backs shone brightly again in this game, with Jakob Robinson providing his typical blanket coverage and Kamden Garrett hauling in the group's fourth interception of the young season. SUU was a little more successful than Sam Houston at generating chunk yardage against soft coverage, but the Thunderbirds still only scored ten points against the Cougars' starters—a far cry from the BYU defense's frustrating performance against Utah Tech last year. In this game, the defense did come out a little slow after halftime, but those issues lasted only one possession—after that, it was back to complete dominance until garbage time.
A special shoutout has to go to Marcus McKenzie, the Cougars' designated punt coverage gunner and, so far, one of their most electrifying players. McKenzie, a true freshman and the son of former BYU star Brian McKenzie, delivered a couple of thunderous hits against Sam Houston in game 1 and repeated the feat in this game. Then, he did something really remarkable. Early in the fourth quarter, with BYU ahead by 24 and looking to close things out, the Cougar offense stalled and Ryan Rehkow got set to punt. McKenzie raced down the field, arriving at the return man shortly after the ball did. Only the ball wasn't there—it had dropped straight through the returner's hands and dribbled behind him. McKenzie, who had hit the returner and fallen down in the process, got to his feet and out-raced his own teammates and the unfortunate SUU player to pounce on the fumble. BYU ball. One play later, Kedon Slovis dropped a pinpoint pass into the endzone for Chase Roberts to salt the game away. Slovis made the throw and Roberts made the catch, but everyone knew that McKenzie had made the play happen. His energy has really stood out through the first two weeks of the season, and he's made a significant impact on both games—not something often said about true freshmen playing special teams.
The Bad:
So far, through two games, the Cougars' rushing attack looks positively anemic. And it's not just the offensive line, though once again, the line was less than stellar. In two starts so far, Aidan Robbins has played exactly two snaps outside the first quarter, and it's not difficult to see why. He's struggling to see the field and explode through holes that freshman LJ Martin seems to have no trouble traversing. And worse, his pass protection has been abysmal. Kedon Slovis's first quarter interception in this game was the direct result of a badly missed blocking assignment by Robbins. Robbins was one of the highest-profile transfers the Cougars acquired in the offseason, and it didn't seem unrealistic to expect him to produce at a high level, joining Jamaal and Ty'Son Williams, Tyler Allgeier, and Chris Brooks in the pantheon of recent BYU running back success stories. So far, Robbins hasn't lived up to those expectations at all, and to be brutally frank, if he can't at least fix his pass blocking issues, he might go down as one of the biggest busts in BYU football history. Losing the starting job to a true freshman would be an awful way for his career to end, but that's the direction he's heading right now. I really hope he turns things around.
The offensive line still has a lot of questions to answer, and we could very well start to see personnel changes if things don't pick up. The lack of energy shown by the offense to start this game was really concerning, and the issues began (and, in many ways, ended) with the line. Trevor Matich's latest analysis is pretty brutal and worth a watch. One thing he points out is that the play of the line over the first two games seems like a reflection of poor practice habits—players giving up on plays and struggling with fundamentals. Darrell Funk's recruiting ability has never been in question, but given that this is the second straight season where the Cougar O-line looks worse than its on-paper talent level, might it be time to re-evaluate the coaching of that position group? Time will tell, and if the line can turn things around, this might just go down as a weird season-opening blip.
Outside of the aforementioned Marcus McKenzie, the special teams unit had a weird day against SUU. Ryan Rehkow shanked a punt and Will Ferrin missed a PAT. Both of those are things that shouldn't happen. Rehkow was fine other than the one rough punt, once again landing himself on the Ray Guy Award "Ray's 8" weekly honors list. Still, though, a little more special teams consistency would be nice.
It's hard to take too much definitive information away from an FCS game, but there were definitely some obvious positives and negatives. The Cougars still have a lot to clean up, but they're starting to finally show some of the potential on both sides of the ball that BYU fans have been hoping for. Ten straight P5 opponents await, starting with Arkansas this week. It's going to be a tough stretch for this newly-promoted Big 12 program, but I still expect that the Cougars will continue to improve week to week. I certainly don't expect the Razorbacks to repeat last year's feat of scoring 52 on BYU.