BYU vs Utah State

BYU opens up as a 2 1/2 point favorite, so within the typical 3 points given to home teams.





I'll say it again. If we can win on Friday, and be 4-2 half way through the season, I'll take that.

This game scares me. It's a huge game for our team as a whole, but I also think it's a huge game for the coaches and how hot their seats will be after this season.



I haven't watched any of USU's game, but just reading over a couple recaps, it looks like they really thrive off of the home run ball type plays: 70yarder against AF, 51yd and 68yd plays against NMST. I'm also seeing kickoff and punt returns for TDs and a pick 6.



If there's one thing our D has been good at this year, it's not allowing huge plays like that. Washington had the talent and experience to just methodically take it down the field without making mistakes (over and over and over again). Will USU be able to sustain multiple long drives? I don't know. Hopefully not...



Looks like they have a really good fg kicker. Hit 6 against NMST include two from 51yds

BYU is in real trouble this week IMO. Unless they can do something that Tuiaki defenses have not consistently done before (get pressure on the QB), USU's offense is going to eat our defense alive. BYU will need to try to keep up with them offensively and I don't see that happening.

If we go 0-2 vs Washington and Utah St, that pretty much negates the Wisconsin win in my book. I'm back to the opinion I had of Sitake after the Cal loss, i.e. that he should be on the hot seat.



Honestly, I don't care if we have a lot of injuries and the Aggies have had 2 weeks to heal up and get ready. If BYU is at the level we like to think we are, and the level Holmoe schedules us, we should be able to beat Utah St in Provo. Period.

KingCoug wrote:

If we go 0-2 vs Washington and Utah St, that pretty much negates the Wisconsin win in my book. I'm back to the opinion I had of Sitake after the Cal loss, i.e. that he should be on the hot seat.



Honestly, I don't care if we have a lot of injuries and the Aggies have had 2 weeks to heal up and get ready. If BYU is at the level we like to think we are, and the level Holmoe schedules us, we should be able to beat Utah St in Provo. Period.

Agreed. I was afraid of what the defense would look like because I have not liked the Tuiaki defense from, pretty much, day 1. I think the offense can look better with better Oline play than we got against CAL and WA. The defense is going to lose us some more games this year unless we get better play calling and Dline play.

I really don't get the lack of pressure. It seems like we've got the guys to do it, and Tuiaki managed to have his defense at #6 in the country in sacks in 2016. https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/2016/team/466 Are we calling the defense differently? Are our front 7 that much worse than what we had in 2016? Are we up against much better offensive lines? I don't know. But we've got to get pressure. You can't give up a QB stat line like we gave up against UW and hope to win against anyone, and pressure would have changed that. Our offense continues to demonstrate it needs field position help to score, because it cannot move the ball. Utah State is a team that can and will score. To win, we either need to change that with some serious pressure and some takeaways, or we need our fairy godmother to turn our pumpkin into an offense.

Did you hear the commentary during the game, Tuiaki told the commentators that he doesn't believe in pressuring the QB. They said it, on national television. Tuiaki's philosophy is if he blitzes that's one less person in the back field to defend. He'd rather have that person defending.



There you have it, folks. Word is out. BYU will not be pressuring your QB. Any team with a decent oline and a decent QB will be able to pick us apart.



We lose this week. USU is fired up. We aren't. We just got our butts handed to us. Our DC doesn't know what he's doing.

Gunk wrote:

Did you hear the commentary during the game, Tuiaki told the commentators that he doesn't believe in pressuring the QB. They said it, on national television. Tuiaki's philosophy is if he blitzes that's one less person in the back field to defend. He'd rather have that person defending.



There you have it, folks. Word is out. BYU will not be pressuring your QB. Any team with a decent oline and a decent QB will be able to pick us apart.



We lose this week. USU is fired up. We aren't. We just got our butts handed to us. Our DC doesn't know what he's doing.

:sick:



Any DC worth his paycheck has got to ask himself "How long can my secondary reasonably be expected to cover?" Based on the guys you've got and the coverage you are running, you have to be able to get to the QB at or before that time, or you're going to get lit up. If you can trust the DBs for 2 seconds, but not more, fine. Play some man coverage, get right up in their faces, and send enough guys that you can get to the QB within 2 seconds. Assuming you've got a tackle that can command a double team (or, even better, two of them), you should be able to have at least one unblocked guy to cause some havoc by sending 5. Maybe you need to stunt or twist to make things less predictable and get there faster. If they leave a back in for protection, you can also blitz whoever's got him and still have a deep safety. Or, you can send 4, as long as they aren't quite sure which 4 are going to be coming (CB or SS blitz - requires more coverage from LB or DL, but if you only have to cover for 2 seconds, that's doable). Yeah, if they pick everyone up you're going to get beat deep. But that's an if, and it's better than the guarantee that you're going to get beat short if you have to cover for too long. Short open passes are way easier to complete than deep open passes.

Utah did it with 4 DL but they were NFL talent level. If their QB is going to crave us up with time then you need to do different things. Like a corner blitz once in awhile. T sounds a little like Anae. His ego will not allow to scheme for something different.

As I said in another thread, Tuiaki needs to be replaced. You can't have a blanket philosophy like "We don't pressure the QB." The best coaches adapt according to the situation. And that's a must for teams like BYU who are often playing at an athletic disadvantage.



Between these comments and Roderick's "Stats are for losers," it's like complete amateur hour.

Utah did send pressure and still does. They blitzed linebackers all the time. Kyle Whittingham's defense is extremely aggressive. This defense wouldn't work if we had 4 NFL Dlineman because they don't disguise anything, there is no deception, they aren't confusing to the QB at all.

Sun Tzu wrote:

The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.

Like any coaching staff, Bronco and co. had their issues and blindspots and weaknesses. But I know he understood this principle. You can have a talent deficit at every position and still come out on top if you can force the offense to make the wrong calls with your personnel, alignment, and pre-snap motion. You can have a talent surplus at every position and still come out on bottom if the offense can always make the right calls based on what you show them. Same thing is true on the other side of the ball, too.



I wish I had a database that tied coordinators to plays, with info on personnel, alignments, motion, down and distance, score, time remaining, reads made, and the effectiveness of the play. I could calculate a predictability score for coordinators, and I'd be willing to bet there's a strong negative correlation between predictability and effectiveness. I'd also be willing to bet that the plays that were not well predicted (i.e. the opposing side made the wrong reads, or it was unconventional based on personnel, down and distance, etc) turn out to be the most effective ones. And then, if all that's true, we can probably have the computer spit out a flowchart showing "If you see this, call that" for both offense and defense. For our defense, it'd probably just be a single box that says "Mesh" on it, because that will probably eat our never-blitz zone for breakfast every single time... (I've read Hal Mumme once basically did this in a real game, and just called Mesh like 58 times in a row. Good thing we don't play him.)