Wednesday Waffle, Week Four

Week One against Washington, Cornerback Brandon Bradley goes down with an injury.  Reserve Corby Eason comes into the game and breaks up a few passes.  He does pretty well in coverage for a few series.  In fact, while he was in the game, Washington attacked the other side, Brian Logan's side, for two big pass plays.

Week Three against Florida State, Brian Logan gets hurt and goes out of the game.  Corby Eason comes in, makes a few tackles, and breaks up another pass.  His coverage is sound, and, again, the two big rushing plays that happened while he was in the game went to the other side.  The big pass play was also thrown at Brandon Bradley, not Eason.

Brandon Bradley has the size factor: he's the first decent corner BYU has had in a long time that was actually 6-feet tall.  But that didn't help in the jump ball FSU threw at him, or against Washington, Air Force, or FSU in big running plays (the 4 biggest running plays BYU has surrendered this season all have this in common: #5 taking a bad angle and missing the back 5 yards into his run).

Brian Logan closes the gaps quickly and is an excellent open-field tackler.  But that didn't help when Washington picked on him twice in the 4th quarter for big passing plays.  It only helps him when a bad throw is made and then he almost certainly breaks up the pass, and in all those pass break-ups he had last year, and the 3 already from this year, he's only had 3 interceptions.  That's got to be one of the lowest ratios in the NCAA, one out of every 7 passes he makes a play on, he actually picks off.

Most of the big pass plays on the season are a result of a blown coverage by a corner, or a bad angle by Brandon Bradley on a running play.  Every time I am impressed by the play of a BYU CB, I look closer and it's almost always #25, Corby Eason.  He can play either boundary or field corner, it doesn't matter.  I realize that we have a smaller sample size with Eason, but the fact that he has made zero noticeable mistakes in about 6 series, where Logan and Bradley have made plenty, it makes you wonder: why isn't Corby getting more playing time?  That's what I'm waffling about this Wednesday.