Tuesday Tidbits, Week 5

Boise State vs. TCU
It wasn't a great weekend for TCU.  They got a win against SMU, though the commentators belittled it a lot, showing complete disrespect for a much improved SMU team.  Nevada beat BYU, Air Force struggled against Wyoming, New Mexico continued to look worse and worse, and Boise State beat Oregon State (worse than TCU beat them), now the strength of schedule argument gets worse for TCU and less bad for Boise State.  In good news: Utah pummeled San Jose State, one of Boise State's opponents.  But everybody KNOWS the bottom of the WAC is horrendous.  Combine the events of the weekend with Boise State's Fiesta Bowl win over TCU last year, and TCU's chances at passing Boise State without a Boise State loss just got a lot harder.

TCU also got bit by the injury bug.  Starting Safety Alex Ibiloye hurt his knee in the waning minutes of the game on Friday night, though the extent of the injury has not been disclosed.  The biggest problem I have with this: it's Coach Patterson's fault.  With 6 minutes left and a 3-score lead he runs his first team offense out there, which is OK, I guess.  With 3 minutes left that first string O goes for it on 4th down, run up the score much?  Then, with 3 minutes left and a 3-score lead, he marches his starting defensive unit out there.  You have a depth chart exactly for that time.  This isn't about style points or anything of that nature.  Coach Patterson has been doing this same thing for years now when he isn't up by 30+ points in the fourth quarter.  He's gotten away without many serious injuries to this point.  I hope the kid is OK, but Coach Patterson should stop playing with fire with his kids.

Strength of Schedule For Ranked Teams
Utah's Strength of Schedule right now is one the easiest for ranked teams (6th easiest): Ohio State, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Iowa are the only ones that are worse. Anybody notice anything in common among those 5 teams? They will all be in the Big Ten-Don't-Call-Me-Twelve next season, and 4 of them are already there this season...easy to get 5 teams ranked for your conference WHEN YOU DON'T PLAY ANYBODY! Then when they beat each other later in the season, they count as quality wins because they beat "ranked" teams. The Big Ten has figured it out. 7 home games. 4 easy non-conference wins. Get ranked. Look better. Send your champion to the National Championship. Get blown out because it's your first truly difficult game of the season. People talk about how stacked the Big Ten is this year: I talk about how amazing it is they aren't all undefeated, but Minnesota lost to an FCS and a MAC team this season. Those were supposed to be two easy home wins.

BYU's Opponents
The 3 opponents that BYU has lost to are all ranked in the top 30 in every poll, human or computer.  The one opponent that they beat is not.  With wins this weekend (all are big favorites), all three could easily jump into the top 25 in the human polls.  Currently, BYU's SOS ranks in the top 5 in the country.  Given that BYU is not a top 5 team, it's no wonder that they are 1-3.  The good news is that their next two opponents are nowhere near top 30 teams.  Utah State is 1-3 against a decent schedule.  San Diego State is 3-1 against the second-easiest schedule in FBS: their schedule is so easy that even at 3-1, they trail 1-3 BYU in ALL computer rankings.  After those two easier games, BYU has another top 25 team on the schedule (i.e. a loss) in TCU, but they follow that with 4 sub-100 teams (i.e. four wins), before their next loss at Utah.  That would probably be enough to get them to the prestigious Poinsettia Bowl, where Utah has played two of the last 3 years.

Crossing the 50
This season, BYU's offense has looked pretty bad.  Particularly glaring from the Nevada game was BYU's 5 possessions in the second half.  In all 5, BYU crossed into Nevada territory.  However, in 5 trips across the 50, BYU only managed one field goal.  In all, BYU had 9 possessions in Nevada territory, but managed to score in only 3 of them, for a total of 13 points.  Here is how BYU's 2010 offense compares with last season's, with regards to crossing mid-field.
In 2009, BYU averaged 7 possessions per game across the 50 (90 possessions in 13 games).
In 2010, BYU averages 6 possessions (24 possessions in 4 games).
In 2009, BYU scored on 69 of 90 possessions (77%).
In 2010, BYU scored on 11 of 24 possessions (46%).
In 2009, BYU turned the ball over 7 times (8%).
In 2010, BYU turned the ball over 1 time (4%).
There are a few differences in BYU's offense this year.  They play it safer, and have turned the ball over less, as a result.  However, with fewer risks has also come fewer points.  If they take more risks and turn the ball over twice as much as they have been, it won't be any worse than last season!  If it leads to more points, it's a risk they have to take.  Scoring 11 times in 4 games will not win many games, particularly when 5 of those 11 are field goals.
Rip the fade from the playbook.  I realize it's the safest throw to make in the red zone, but it also has the smallest chance of success.  46% won't get the job done.  They are crossing the 50 enough.  They aren't crossing the goalline enough.