Observations from the BSU Game

Well, guys, I about yelled myself out. I had my sign "Cougar Corner Rocks!" but alas ESPN never looked my way. But CC DOES rock



This team tears my heart out again. Sigh. Here are my observations:



This was a TEAM loss. Taysom did NOT play well--he overthrew receivers and missed seeing open guys all night, BUT he did not lose this game by any stretch of imagination. This was a team loss and it starts with:



We got outcoached. I won't even discuss the 4th and 19 from the 2 and doing a fake punt. Just.Won't.Go.There. In the end BSU got nothing out of it, but man what a call. BSU's playcalling on offense was excellent. Our D was on its heels all night. Kudos to the D for the turnovers AND being responsible for 17 of our 27 points, but BSU had its way on D all night. Our offense was V.A.N.I.L.L.A. And with Vanilla you better execute and we did not. Dropped passes that would have gone for big plays were the theme. I do not think I've seen Kurtz have a worse game for a BYU receiver.



We lost the game in the trenches. They owned us on both sides of the ball. I said we needed to pressure their QB and we never did. I think we did get one sack. Interestingly, I saw very few blitzes. I thought our OLine would assert themselves. They did not. Canada actually ran quite hard and I cannot tell how much a difference Jamaal would've made, but the OLine did not protect Taysom and did not own the line of scrimmage.



Almond's kick looked to be very low--maybe the TV showed it better? Mickey Rooney could have blocked it.



We really do not have playmakers. Taysom IS a step slower and is not the dominant force we (at least I) thought he'd be when the season started. And he is not as accurate as Tanner was last year. Jamaal is the closest we have to a playmaker, but a RB, to be a playmaker, needs holes to run through and at least last night they weren't there.



Final thought, the team after shaking hands all went into the locker room in the south endzone. Then they all came back out and walked accross the field to where the BYU fans were in the NW part of the stadium to do the BYU fight song. I wonder if the coaches sent them back out? They looked like some humble Tiggers. The good news is that there were a lot BYU fans still left and we cheered the team and sang with them (12:30 a.m.!!). I'm sure it did not make them feel any better, but I was glad to wish them off. I love my Cougs and will keep cheering them. We played a top 15 team in one of the hardest places to play to a near standstill. The team NEVER gave up and I like that about them. FINALLY:



Warner's pick 6 was the most amazing pick 6 I've sever seen. It was not one where you catch it and are gone. He literally fought off the entire team straddling the sideline. Truly the highlight of the game. Juergens catch was a close second. Amzing catch. Peace out.

Thank you for sharing your experience and observations! I agree 100% with everything you said.

byufan4ever wrote:
Thank you for sharing your experience and observations! I agree 100% with everything you said.

+1

I don't know if we got out coached. We made great in-game adjustments. That game could have easily gone the way of the 2014 game - where it was 41-16 at the half. Instead, we fought back, never gave up and gave us a chance to win at the end.

Agree with Boise (mostly), but I think that the dropped passes killed the win more than anything else. One other thing is, that BYU called too many ordinary run plays, without converting the downs. I know this will sound tediously obvious, but: You can't wear down the opposing D line with running, unless you get first downs. With admittedly cheap hind-sight perspective, I suspect that we needed more pass plays. I wonder if Detmer's judgement is that our OL is more developed for run blocking than it is pass protection. Any way, perhaps the receivers would have overcome their jitters and started making more catches, if they had gotten more reps. But what do I know? My only experience comes from being a spectator, and a little bit of high school FB (so I really know little, to nothing).



I don't mean to criticise Detmer, who I love like a brother although I've never met him. He has kept BYU in every game with a chance to win at the very end. This was, of course, excepting the UCLA game, where their clock management allowed us to get close in score, but with no time for another possession. Still, we were competitive for most of that game. Overall, I am not disappointed. Detmer has delivered an exciting and entertaining football product. I am certain that ESPN loves him too.



In another direction, I am also very pleased with Kalani so far.

They did attempt 42 passes.. Out of 90 plays. That's a fairly evenly distributed game. I'm curious how many passes BYU should have attempted in the opinion of those who say they should have passed more. Anyone want to actually throw some numbers out there?

Lol I was able to get on TV. This was a total team loss in every sense of the word. Busted coverages, bad play calling, dropped passes, Sack at the worst possible time, penalty after penalty in the red zone. JWill diff would have made a big difference i feel he Opens up so much for offense. We diff need to recruit some home run hitter at WR. It's been a frustrating season we could so easily be undeafted right now. I am not trying to label the entire fan base but man bsu has some really bad fans. To the point other bsu fans were apologizing for some peoples behavior. What I have seen on social media I was not the only person to have so issues.

Ballin you are famous now.

SpiffCoug wrote:
I don't know if we got out coached. We made great in-game adjustments. That game could have easily gone the way of the 2014 game - where it was 41-16 at the half. Instead, we fought back, never gave up and gave us a chance to win at the end.

You could very well be right. I thought our offensive play calling was very (indeed too) predictable. Maybe that's because that's all we could do. I was surprised it did not seem like we tried to pressure the QB. I saw very few blitzes. BSU could throw long down field because their QB had lots of time to wait and look. Finally, our safeties seemed confused at out of position too much. I'm not saying coaching was the deal breaker and it says something good about the coaches that this team does not give up. But just a few observations.

BoiseBYU wrote:

I don't know if we got out coached. We made great in-game adjustments. That game could have easily gone the way of the 2014 game - where it was 41-16 at the half. Instead, we fought back, never gave up and gave us a chance to win at the end.

You could very well be right. I thought our offensive play calling was very (indeed too) predictable. Maybe that's because that's all we could do. I was surprised it did not seem like we tried to pressure the QB. I saw very few blitzes. BSU could throw long down field because their QB had lots of time to wait and look. Finally, our safeties seemed confused at out of position too much. I'm not saying coaching was the deal breaker and it says something good about the coaches that this team does not give up. But just a few observations.

Out coached??? No I don't think so, but there were some terrible decisions like going for a punt fake on 4th an 19 on your own 5 yard line, not kicking the FG at the end of the first half from the 36 yard line instead of going for it, not kicking the FG in the 3rd quarter from the 36 yard line the possession before BYU forced a turnover and where BYU did kick a FG, and not making another attempt after the FG was blocked at the end of the game. Some time BYU needs to trust their kicker whose is 8 of 10 with 1 miss and 1 block from being to close to the o-line. The BYU coaching was good save for those 3 poor decisions



Had BYU been as efficient passing the ball like they were with Mangum last year in the Boise St. game not having Williams wouldn't have been a problem.



Had BYU kicked the FG after the fumble late in the 2nd quarter instead of going for it BYU could very easily had a 20-14 lead going into halftime because I think has BYU scored there Boise St. would have been so shell shocked by BYU having scored 20 unanswered points it would have been unlike they score the TD they did. All going for it did was give Boise St. back the momentum and with it another TD. The worse that would have happened is that BYU would have missed the FG and Boise St would have had the ball back at the same spot they got it anyway when BYU turned it over on downs with the incomplete pass without Boise St. having the momentum they got from forcing a turnover on downs.



Again had BYU kicked the FG instead of going for it BYU would have had 2 FGs and a TD in the 3rd quarter and 30-14 lead going in to the 4th quarter. Again all going for it did was give the momentum back to Boise St. which lead to the long drive and winning TD. If you add the FG late in the 2nd quarter after the fumble instead of going for it BYU would have had a 33-14 lead going into the 4th quarter.



BYU should have attempted the FG again knowing where the block came from you can plan accordingly and the worse that could happen is that it is blocked again or missed in which BYU would have another attempt if missed and maybe another if BYU recovers a 2nd block.

I'm going to agree with Boise on this one, I think BYU not only got out coached, but got thoroughly out coached in ever facet of the game. This was absolutely the worst coached game of the season.