What to Expect From 2010 BYU Football

Well, sorry it's taken so long.  I'm glad I waited a while before posting this, though, since Harvey Unga's announcement that he is withdrawing from BYU changes things a little bit.  First off, Harvey could potentially come back for this upcoming season.  He would just need an ecclesiastical endorsement prior to the start of fall camp.  Secondly, if you were going to lose a superstar, I would rather lose Harvey Unga than any of the other 3: WR McKay Jacobson, SS Andrew Rich, or OLB Jordan Pendleton.  There is a lot more depth at RB than there is at those 3 spots.  Don't believe me: tell me who the backup running back is.  You probably answered JJ DeLuigi or maybe you said Bryan Kariya.  Perhaps hotshot freshman Joshua Quezada went through your mind.  Now quick, give me the backup SS or OLB.  Wide Receiver isn't quite as bad as SS or OLB since they have Luke Ashworth, Spencer Hafoka, and O'Neill Chambers (and maybe Ross Apo?).  Better Unga than any of those 3.

OK, let's start with the schedule and work our way to personnel.  The schedule isn't amazingly difficult, it never really is in the MWC.  The non-conference schedule includes two BCS conference foes, one at home with Washington and one on the road with Florida State and a new head coach after decades of Bobby Bowden.  Two WAC foes, both of which shouldn't give BYU a whole lot of trouble (though you never know about the rivalry game in Logan, homecoming for Riley Nelson), one at home with Nevada, and one on the road with Utah State (who I believe will push for a bowl game this season).  The toughest MWC opponents are ALL on the road, but realistically, the home-field advantage isn't a huge deal with the MWC's mostly tiny stadiums and with BYU's large following (other than playing at Utah which is about as hostile an environment as there is in college football, for the BYU game that is, not generally speaking).  The bye comes after BYU's 8th game of the season, leading into November.  You would always prefer to have the bye prior to TCU, but that is never going to happen.

BYU starts the year home, away, away, home, and then finishes with a home-away pattern for the close of the season.  They will probably play 3 ranked opponents, one in September, one in October, and one in November.  It is a very balanced schedule.  If BYU starts out 0-3, I would anticipate a 7-5 finish.  If they go 1-2, maybe that jumps to 8-4.  At 2-1, I like their chances to win 9 or maybe even 10 games.  If they beat Washington, win at Air Force, and take down the Florida State Seminoles in Tallahassee, I think they are likely to win 10 or possibly even 11 games.  I do not like their chances to go 12-0.  I would be shocked and disappointed if they didn't win at least 7 games.  I would hope they could get to 8 or 9 wins this year.  I would consider that a good year.  10 or 11 wins would be a phenomenal year.  6 wins or less would mean they absolutely chose the wrong starting QB!  I think they will probably go 8-4 and finish 3rd or 4th in the conference for the following reasons:

1. Even if they choose the best QB for the job, there are growing pains associated with starting at the Division I level for the first time.  Max Hall was still experiencing some of them last year!  It will inevitably cost them one game.  Whether that is a close game where there is a bad read in the 4th quarter, or a game where the QB plays poorly throughout that prevents BYU from being in the game, you never know.  But it will cost you one game.  Look at Utah last year: they lost at Oregon b/c of their QB, they lost at TCU partially because their QB dug them into a huge hole in the first half, they lost at BYU in OT because they couldn't do anything on offense in the 2nd and 3rd quarters and because they had to settle for a field goal in OT.

2. There is no question this is somewhat of a rebuilding year.  The last rebuilding year for the Cougars, BYU managed to win a conference championship.  However, that season, TCU was 8-5 and Utah lost to UNLV 27-0: neither of those are happening this season.  While they are going to be able to replace some of the losses they took with graduation, there is no way they can replace all of them at the same level.  This team will probably have greater talent, speed, and size than last year's team at most positions (not DE or TE), but experience is vital to success in Division I athletics.  Look at hoops: Duke vs. Kentucky.  Duke's upper-classmen definitely weren't better or more talented than Kentucky's freshman, but they had the Division I experience to win an NCAA Championship.  Kentucky did not.  BYU is going to play a lot of inexperienced guys.  Period.  There are a lot of teams with more experience on their schedule, including Washington, Air Force, Florida State, TCU, Utah.

Personnel

QBs: this is obviously the most highly publicized position battle.  There are 3 quality candidates, 4 if you count Munns (I don't count him: he has no chance to be the starting QB).  At least one of them could have a stellar career as BYU's QB.  I think the longer the "race" goes, the more likely Heaps is going to win it.  His biggest weakness at this point is experience.  The longer this drags out, the more experience he is going to have.  If they had named a starter after Spring Ball, it probably would not have been Heaps.  Since they didn't name one: it's going to be Heaps.  If you look at the stats from Spring Ball scrimmages, Heaps had a higher completion % (Doman's number one criteria because completions yield first downs and first downs yield touchdowns), more yards per attempt, and more TDs than the other two candidates.  He can throw deep, he can throw short, he can move in the pocket, he can handle the playbook, he can read the defense.  Why wouldn't you start the guy?  I think Heaps starts and he throws for 3,000 yards and gets 8 wins: a nice start to replace Hall on the top of BYU's winningest QB list.

RBs: even without Harvey Unga, BYU has a really solid backfield.  While they don't have a big bruiser like Tonga to lead the way (who does these days?), they have serviceable lead-blockers, and Kariya could be more than serviceable for sure.  Now add Unga to the mix and BYU has a great backfield.  I think BYU will rely on the run game more if Unga is there.  If not, they'll utilize the backs like BYU's offense normally does.  With Riley Nelson as either the starting QB or backup/wildcat QB, they wouldn't even necessarily need the RBs as much.  The running game is still a position of relative strength for the Cougars, even without Unga.

WRs: this should be a solid, but relatively unspectacular, unit this year.  This is nothing new.  The big, strong, fast WRs just don't matriculate to the campus of BYU.  If they do, they have no hands.  There is some promise with big, strong WRs this year: Chambers as a Junior and Apo the incoming freshman.  Jacobson is wicked fast.  Ashworth and Hafoka are BYU's traditional precision route runners.  I think once you get below that 5th WR, people won't be seeing much playing time.  The top 5 are, again, solid.  If Apo is the real deal and Jacobson stays healthy (and Heaps plays QB), this unit could move into the "great" category.

TEs: I know the coaches say these new guys are talented, but I'm not sure I buy it.  They certainly aren't Pitta and George (who are now on the Ravens and Panthers).  There are two "talented" freshmen, two juniors who weren't good enough to see the field the last two years, and two guys coming off missions.  I think the TE might be somewhat absent from BYU's repertoire, at least the first half of the season.  It will certainly be more absent than last year.  This will hurt the most in the red zone, where the TEs could be used as blockers or on play-action as touchdown makers.

OL: obviously there is some concern here because of injuries.  However, BYU did the same thing last year and the O-Line turned out to be pretty solid.  About half of the penalties on the line last year were called on the lone departure, Center R.J. Willing.  The other 4 starters return.  There will also be 3 new linemen who fought for starting jobs last year and had season-ending injuries before the season.  That's 7 solid linemen, plus the 5 guys who got all of the reps in spring camp because everyone else was injured.  So, this should be a very good unit with 4 returning starters and 8 good/experienced players behind them, assuming they get healthy and gel together.  I'd like to see a little more toughness from them in the running game, but you can't expect them to do perfectly.  They are led by a future 1st round draft pick (according to Todd McShay).

DL: for a team that runs a 3-4 that lost it's top 4 DL, they surprisingly have a lot of experience on this unit.  4 guys played good minutes last year and the year before, at least 2 others were seeing very significant time on special teams.  However, I still see a huge dropoff from last year.  It starts in the middle: there is only one true nose tackle with Romney Fuga.  He's the only guy within a reasonable distance of 300 pounds.  The lack of size on the DL is disconcerting.  There is some speed off the edge, but that doesn't do much good if teams pound you up the middle.  Last year they had this same issue but had some beefy MLBs to back them up, which evened the playing field a bit.  This year, they don't have that luxury.

LBs: there is a lot of potential here.  But to this point, everyone but Jordan Pendleton is just a "potential" good player.  Kyle Van Noy, Jameson Frazier, Brandon Ogletree: they might be good.  You just don't know.  One thing is for sure: this unit will need to play well.  The defensive scheme for BYU asks the LBs to do so much more than the other positions.  This unit needs to make plays, plain and simple.  Last year, Pendleton and Baumann made big plays.  The year before, nobody made big plays.  The year before that all of the LBs were playmakers.  There is a huge difference from year to year.  Last year the D was much better than 2008, neither of which were anywhere near as good as the 2007 D.  If Pendleton isn't a dominant force, who is going to be?  Ideally, you'd like another LB to step up so the former Bingham Miner doesn't have to carry the front 7 by himself.

CBs: a lot of things can and have been said about the history the cornerback position at BYU.  They are either really quick but short with no ability to play or the ball or tall but slow with no ability to be close enough to even play the ball at all.  I think this year, these guys might actually be better than the traditional BYU CB.  Both starters from last year are returning, and they were better than half-decent.  Brandon Bradley showed promise last year: he was in on a lot of tackles (4th on the team), however, he didn't get a single interception the entire season (you can't have a starting corner in Division I that didn't get a single pick).  He did force two fumbles, though, so at least he's involved in creating turnovers somehow.  Brian Logan got better at playing the ball last year as the year went along (he even ended up with 14 pass break-ups, which was one of the best in the country), but he needs to improve dramatically: teams will continue to pick on him because of his size, or lack thereof (his percentage of pass break-ups was not very spectacular).  He had 6 or 7 pass interference penalties and also gave up a lot of receptions.  Where these two corners definitely excel is in preventing YAC (yards after the catch).  The backups are supposedly serviceable.  Lee Acquirre played quite a bit last year and played about as well as the starters.  Corby Eason and Robbie Buckner were in the hunt for the starting jobs last year and would probably be decent, if playing them became necessary.  They lack size, though both are bigger than Logan.  In 2011, those two will probably be starting.

Safeties: Andrew Rich is a beast.  He led the team in tackles (and it wasn't even close).  He tied for the team lead in picks with 4.  He was occasionally used as a blitzer, very effectively.  He played tough on screens and swing passes.  He was all over the field.  And he did all of that with injuries to his ankle and shoulder that required surgery in the offseason.  Unfortunately, you have to play two safeties.  Plus, Rich doesn't have a solid backup either.  This is the one position where they are set and screwed at the same time.  Rich is the best player on the defense, but they have no quality free safety options.  I wouldn't be completely surprised if Rich moves to free safety, since the guys competing for free safety are really strong safeties anyway and he has such a mastery of the defensive schemes.  I think that would be a mistake, personally, and I hope they don't do it.  If they don't discover a quality free safety, the QB of BYU's D, they might be in trouble, regardless of how well everybody else does.

BYU has plenty of talent.  They have mostly bigger, faster, stronger players than last year, but they are definitely much greener.  I think the greenies can and will pull out 8 or 9 wins.  I don't expect 10, but if they get 6, I will second guess personnel decisions across the board.  I'll blame Harvey Unga for his honor code issues.  I'll blast recruiting strategies and results.  I will pick apart every aspect of the program that I don't agree with.  I'm a fan and blogger, so I can do that!  Just kidding.  I think Bronco is doing a great job.  I think the program is miles ahead of where it would be at this time with K-Whit.  He's perfect for Utah, Bronco is perfect for BYU.  I will, however, be brutally honest with what I think is happening with the program.  I think the long-term future looks very bright for the program, though in the short-term some growing pains are to be expected.