BYU-Tulane Preview

I've spoken with a lot of BYU fans who are concerned about a letdown tomorrow by BYU. Let me tell you why I'm not worried about that:

1) The offense only put up 14 points. Harvey Unga did not get a chance to play so IF he does get cleared by the trainers to play, he'll be looking to leave a few bruises on Tulane defenders in the running game. The offense failed to run the ball in the second half last week. They are going to want to establish that with some physicality upfront. WR O'Neill Chambers fumbled a ball on the 2-yard line, leading to a turnover and zero points for BYU: he'll want to redeem himself (plus, being from Florida, he'll probably have a lot of friends and family in attendance at the Superdome). Unga's replacement at RB Brian Kariya had a big play but got caught from behind and tackled inside the 5, and had several rushes inside the 5 that didn't go for scores, he'll want to find the end zone. Max Hall threw two interceptions last week: he'll want to be more precise and improve his decision-making skills (plus Ryan Reynolds won't be roaming the field this weekend). I just think the O, in particular, will be hungry and will cut down on mistakes and put more points on the board. I think, having watched Tulsa's spread option running attack have success running and throwing against the Green Wave, that BYU will move the ball and score the ball. I give them 6-7 scores, somewhere between 38-49 points.

2) Defensively, they are going up against a fairly weak offense. With regards to size and speed, Tulane is nothing compared to what Oklahoma put out there last week. The one exception is at WR. Oklahoma had more raw talent, speed, size, etc. Tulane, however, has a couple of guys with phenomenal hands that know how to get open, and they have the one thing the OU receivers lacked: experience. However, the O-line had problems protecting the QB and the running game was pretty much non-existent against Tulsa. So the D, where there might be a little hangover from last week, doesn't have nearly as much to worry about. The other aspect there though: a lot of guys rotate in and out on D, so they play hard each play, knowing that they are going to get a breather, and if they don't perform well, they might get a long breather! Tulane will probably be able to move the ball a bit through the air, but I'm not sure they can sustain a lot of long drives. They do have some big play potential, especially if they decide to just air it out, and will probably score 2-3 times for between 10-17 points.

3) Whether it was a motivational tool for his team or just plain honesty I don't know, but Coach Toledo stated that his team does not have the tools to compete with BYU at this time, but that they are trying to build the program so that in the future they would be able to. If the coach doesn't believe in an upset, how will the players buy into it? I think Bronco Mendenhall has done a better job with the media and his team in preparation for this game, just based on some of the public comments he made and what I know about Bronco's approach to game preparation.

4) It's on ESPN2, overlapping with a couple of other good games on other channels, but it's on national TV, and they don't get many opportunities like that to impress on a national scale. I think this BYU team has a desire to go out and hit people in the mouth and show as many people as possible that this is not last year's BYU team. This is their last ESPN regular season audience.

I think Coach Toledo is right: the Green Wave do not have the horses, particularly the front 7 on D and the hogs on the O-line, to compete with a top 15-20 team (not willing to call BYU top 10 just yet: it was a pretty sloppy game last week and I didn't get a chance to see all of the other top 15-20 play to make that judgement). My actual final score prediction is 41-13.