The offense is a major disappointment

[Mars]

I'm blaming the heat. I heard it was just awful out there.

It really isn't fair that Portland State didn't have to play in the heat as well!

[CrimsonCoug]

I grew up in Las Vegas, so I know a bit about heat. You don't blame heat for a loss because both sides play in it, but you do blame heat for both sides seeming flatter than they should. In other words, it has a scaling effect, a dampening effect for everyone. So it's going to make for closer margins of victory. And that's really what people are complaining about--not that we lost, but that we didn't win big enough. Classic heat issue.
The heat doesn't mean a player can't have 1-off phenomenal plays, but you pay for it later when you go from the anaerobic bursts of energy to the aerobic recovery phase, and it depletes your total energy reserves. Also, it's a lot easier for a defense to play man press in the heat. The heat's already going to slow the WR down, so if you bump them a bit you do enough to throw off the timing throws.
That said, the thing I was most disappointed in was the conditioning. It was pretty obvious that Portly State was in better cardio shape.
A lot of what I saw were mental errors (that got cleaned up as the game went along), and boring game planning. I don't think we can rule out Detmer engaging in some good southern gamesmanship.
Besides, he gave us his coaching philosophy from Herm Edwards: "You play to win the game!" You don't play [plan] for style or for margin of victory. I think you can make an argument that Ty was playing to win this game and the next. By saying all week that they weren't going to hold anything back (and technically, they didn't; they just didn't need to pull out all the stops), and then having a game be closer than fans would like but never really in doubt, he gets a win, doesn't give anything away to LSU and gets them to game plan against things they're likely to see some of but not against things they will see but haven't yet, and gets LSU thinking that they can take BYU easily. I won't be surprised if the Hurricane combined with seeing a 'soft' BYU team leads them to practice and prepare this week with less urgency, and it exposes BYU's own players to a lot of what they need to do to get better.
I'm not saying that Ty IS that smart, but just that if he were smart, he'd do something pretty similar to what happened.

In short, PSU had the better conditioning, scheme, and mental edge (they believed they were in it for all 3600 seconds, less the last play). BYU had the better skill set. We won this on a talent differential. The win was as close as it was because of the heat. Going forward, we can fix scheme and mental prep pretty quickly. We can improve our skill set (though I'm still worried there). Conditioning will take longer--but even there, we beefed up to be able to withstand the next 3 games. I agree: I haven't seen anything to make me think this will be a special season. But I also think we still have a fighting chance to win the rest of our games.

This week is truth week.

[Woody3715]

The Cougars weren't just playing a Portland State FCS team, they were playing a team that last year was a 3-8 FCS team and gave up an average of 38.6 points per game against FCS competition. PSU also played a true freshman QB, freshman RB etc.: in short, BYU played a bad FCS football team. Yet PSU ran 72 plays to 61 for the Cougars and had a slight advantage in time of possession. To score only 20 points against this team is pathetic.

[TheDean]

The Cougars weren't just playing a Portland State FCS team, they were playing a team that last year was a 3-8 FCS team and gave up an average of 38.6 points per game against FCS competition. PSU also played a true freshman QB, freshman RB etc.: in short, BYU played a bad FCS football team. Yet PSU ran 72 plays to 61 for the Cougars and had a slight advantage in time of possession. To score only 20 points against this team is pathetic.

You forget 3 TDs were called back by stupid penalties. Penalties in my opinion that shouldn't have been called in the first place. I also saw a lot of offensive and defensive holding by PSU that was never called, but no surprise, as the refs were Big sky refs. The 2 catches that were ruled incomplete by the ref in the booth didn't help either.

[vancouvercougar]

The Cougars weren't just playing a Portland State FCS team, they were playing a team that last year was a 3-8 FCS team and gave up an average of 38.6 points per game against FCS competition. PSU also played a true freshman QB, freshman RB etc.: in short, BYU played a bad FCS football team. Yet PSU ran 72 plays to 61 for the Cougars and had a slight advantage in time of possession. To score only 20 points against this team is pathetic.

What makes you think that this is a BAD FCS team? in 2015, they beat the cougars--The WSU cougars from the mighty PAC 12. Last year was a rebuilding year for them. I used to watch a few Portland State games each year.

[byufan4ever]

The Cougars weren't just playing a Portland State FCS team, they were playing a team that last year was a 3-8 FCS team and gave up an average of 38.6 points per game against FCS competition. PSU also played a true freshman QB, freshman RB etc.: in short, BYU played a bad FCS football team. Yet PSU ran 72 plays to 61 for the Cougars and had a slight advantage in time of possession. To score only 20 points against this team is pathetic.

You forget 3 TDs were called back by stupid penalties.

You sure about that? I remember just one. The game recap from Lawless Republic says:

Four BYU drives stalled as a result of penalties. One of those took six points off the board, ending the drive a missed field goal instead.

[mtnradio]

You forget 3 TDs were called back by stupid penalties. Penalties in my opinion that shouldn't have been called in the first place.

You didn't think the ref should have thrown the flag for too many men in the backfield? It IS a stupid penalty (mental mistake) ... but it was pretty clear and has to be called. And that's the only one I remember calling back a TD ... maybe I'm wrong though.

[TheDean]

You forget 3 TDs were called back by stupid penalties. Penalties in my opinion that shouldn't have been called in the first place.

You didn't think the ref should have thrown the flag for too many men in the backfield? It IS a stupid penalty (mental mistake) ... but it was pretty clear and has to be called. And that's the only one I remember calling back a TD ... maybe I'm wrong though.

No as there wasn't too many men in the backfield as BYU had ran that same play 4 times previously on that drive. You also forget the drives that ended in FGs as there was 3 of those, 2 FG's were made and 1 FG that was missed.

[Mars]

Newsflash: It wasn't the heat.

[SpiffCoug]

Newsflash: It wasn't the heat.

Darn. I was hoping it was. I sold my stock in Detmer and Mangum last night. Detmer is out of his league. Mangum doesn't know what's what anymore. They're both lost.