D
Dcr36It feels a little hollow to say "impressive win" against a team that is 2-8, but actually, I am pretty impressed with how the Cougars played tonight. For the following reasons -
Margin of victory: BYU's margin of victory against Idaho (35) was the largest of any of Idaho's opponents tonight, despite the fact that we were tossing bench players into the game mid-3rd quarter. Idaho's the sort of team that you EXPECT to blow out, but aside from us and TAMU, nobody has beat them by more than two possessions. In their last 4 losses, they lost by an average of 5.75 points.
Solid running: BYU's rushing game dominated Idaho like nobody else this year. This was probably the only true test the Vandals could provide: Idaho held Virginia (#40 in YPC) and TAMU (#19) to YPCs that were serviceable, but well below their averages (3.93 vs. 4.63 and 3.68 vs. 5.24, respectively). BYU rushed 42 times for 243 yards, for a nice 5.8 yard average. BYU's run game has improved, and I was thankful to see that carried over when Heaps came in and the QB draws were no longer in the playbook. My hope is that unless BYU plays an elite defense (and I'm including TCU's second-half-of-the-season defense in that category), they should be able to run effectively.
Complete QB shutdown: Our pass defense made Idaho look like, well, Idaho State. (Wonder who'd win?) I think that Idaho made a mistake in making Taylor Davis the starter based on one or two pretty performances. Regardless, he was 5/12 for negative 6 yards and an INT for a PER of 20.8. That is an unreal stat line! Brian Reader fared a bit better, but he wasn't in the game until there was 1:29 remaining in the 3rd quarter and spent much of that time trowing against our B-team.
Okay run D: Stat-wise, that McCarty 82-yard TD defiled what was otherwise an okay performance by our pass D. You take that one rush out and Idaho was 32 for 109, for 3.4 yards. Not shut-down, by any stretch of the imagination, but when your opponent has absolutely no pass game to turn to, it's pretty good. Oddly enough, Idaho averages LESS than 3.4 on the season. I'm going to turn a blind eye to that and believe that our gameplan was more pass-oriented. ;)
Heaps looked good: He still did some of the things that drove me nuts before he got benched, but I felt like the game-plan, whether it was Doman's playcalling or his own pass selections, did a lot to play to his strengths. Granted, he was playing against a bad team, but he was sucking against some pretty bad teams when he got benched, so hopefully tonight was a good omen.
And on that last note, I do want to say - I'm not a Heaps-hater, and if he's our QB, I'm on his side 100%. I believe he can win us our last two games. But my goodness, he is BORING to watch. (I don't mind if he's boring, though, as long as he wins. :crazy: )
Some looking-ahead thoughts:
So BYU's offense enters what, in my mind, is essentially its third incarnation this season, the post-Nelson Heaps incarnation, which tonight looked like a mishmash of Heaps and some of the lessons and improvements we made with Nelson. I'm interested what Heaps does with a better run game and (what appears to be) smarter playcalling. I think I tend to be one of the more over-optimistic guys here at CC, but I think our odds are decent in our next two games.
New Mexico's pass defense is not that great. Their average PER allowed is pretty mediocre (roughly 130), and that's a WAC team with an OCC schedule that included early-season Minnesota (the worst AQ team at the time), UTEP (with the Miners playing a backup QB), and Ohio. Georgia shredded them last week for a PER in the 230s. Hawaii's average PER allowed is worse than NM, and that's against a pretty piss-poor schedule, too.
However, I think run offense is a bigger part of BYU's current offensive identity. That's good news against NMSU (statistically and consistently one of the worst rush defenses in the country this year), bad news against Hawaii. But Hawaii's been pounded pretty hard by Nevada and Utah State on the ground these last two weeks. On the other hand, Nevada and Utah State are statistically elite rushing teams. On the other other hand, Hawaii acquired their good stats against some pretty awful rushing teams. We'll just have to see.
On the other side of the ball, we'll have two more opportunities to discuss BYU's secondary, any any gap that may exist between its perception and reality. Hawaii is Hawaii and they throw the ball a lot, but NMSU's Matt Christian is a surprisingly competent QB, for what it's worth. Neither of the two is that strong on rushing.
That's that. I'm looking forward to NMSU, who's a borderline decent team this year but need to beat us for a chance to be bowl-eligible. Should be fun.
Margin of victory: BYU's margin of victory against Idaho (35) was the largest of any of Idaho's opponents tonight, despite the fact that we were tossing bench players into the game mid-3rd quarter. Idaho's the sort of team that you EXPECT to blow out, but aside from us and TAMU, nobody has beat them by more than two possessions. In their last 4 losses, they lost by an average of 5.75 points.
Solid running: BYU's rushing game dominated Idaho like nobody else this year. This was probably the only true test the Vandals could provide: Idaho held Virginia (#40 in YPC) and TAMU (#19) to YPCs that were serviceable, but well below their averages (3.93 vs. 4.63 and 3.68 vs. 5.24, respectively). BYU rushed 42 times for 243 yards, for a nice 5.8 yard average. BYU's run game has improved, and I was thankful to see that carried over when Heaps came in and the QB draws were no longer in the playbook. My hope is that unless BYU plays an elite defense (and I'm including TCU's second-half-of-the-season defense in that category), they should be able to run effectively.
Complete QB shutdown: Our pass defense made Idaho look like, well, Idaho State. (Wonder who'd win?) I think that Idaho made a mistake in making Taylor Davis the starter based on one or two pretty performances. Regardless, he was 5/12 for negative 6 yards and an INT for a PER of 20.8. That is an unreal stat line! Brian Reader fared a bit better, but he wasn't in the game until there was 1:29 remaining in the 3rd quarter and spent much of that time trowing against our B-team.
Okay run D: Stat-wise, that McCarty 82-yard TD defiled what was otherwise an okay performance by our pass D. You take that one rush out and Idaho was 32 for 109, for 3.4 yards. Not shut-down, by any stretch of the imagination, but when your opponent has absolutely no pass game to turn to, it's pretty good. Oddly enough, Idaho averages LESS than 3.4 on the season. I'm going to turn a blind eye to that and believe that our gameplan was more pass-oriented. ;)
Heaps looked good: He still did some of the things that drove me nuts before he got benched, but I felt like the game-plan, whether it was Doman's playcalling or his own pass selections, did a lot to play to his strengths. Granted, he was playing against a bad team, but he was sucking against some pretty bad teams when he got benched, so hopefully tonight was a good omen.
And on that last note, I do want to say - I'm not a Heaps-hater, and if he's our QB, I'm on his side 100%. I believe he can win us our last two games. But my goodness, he is BORING to watch. (I don't mind if he's boring, though, as long as he wins. :crazy: )
Some looking-ahead thoughts:
So BYU's offense enters what, in my mind, is essentially its third incarnation this season, the post-Nelson Heaps incarnation, which tonight looked like a mishmash of Heaps and some of the lessons and improvements we made with Nelson. I'm interested what Heaps does with a better run game and (what appears to be) smarter playcalling. I think I tend to be one of the more over-optimistic guys here at CC, but I think our odds are decent in our next two games.
New Mexico's pass defense is not that great. Their average PER allowed is pretty mediocre (roughly 130), and that's a WAC team with an OCC schedule that included early-season Minnesota (the worst AQ team at the time), UTEP (with the Miners playing a backup QB), and Ohio. Georgia shredded them last week for a PER in the 230s. Hawaii's average PER allowed is worse than NM, and that's against a pretty piss-poor schedule, too.
However, I think run offense is a bigger part of BYU's current offensive identity. That's good news against NMSU (statistically and consistently one of the worst rush defenses in the country this year), bad news against Hawaii. But Hawaii's been pounded pretty hard by Nevada and Utah State on the ground these last two weeks. On the other hand, Nevada and Utah State are statistically elite rushing teams. On the other other hand, Hawaii acquired their good stats against some pretty awful rushing teams. We'll just have to see.
On the other side of the ball, we'll have two more opportunities to discuss BYU's secondary, any any gap that may exist between its perception and reality. Hawaii is Hawaii and they throw the ball a lot, but NMSU's Matt Christian is a surprisingly competent QB, for what it's worth. Neither of the two is that strong on rushing.
That's that. I'm looking forward to NMSU, who's a borderline decent team this year but need to beat us for a chance to be bowl-eligible. Should be fun.