A Preview Of BYU's Offense

Expectations are high for BYU's offense going into every season.  When a team has been as good at one thing for so long, it becomes expected.  The reason for optimism is this: last year BYU finished strong and they are bringing everybody back.  They have a more experienced QB, a zesty playcaller, and grown-up WRs, TEs, and RBs.  However, let's temper the optimism a bit.  Yes, have high hopes.  As far as any fan knows, their team will go 12-0 in the fall and win the National Championship.  However, the turnaround in BYU's fortunes the second half of last season coincided with the turnaround in their strength of schedule.

BYU scored a ton of points in their last 6 games.  BYU only scored less than 20 once in those 6 games.  However, they only played 1 defense ranked in the top half of college football in scoring defense, which was also the one game they scored under 20 points.  3 of the 6 teams they played had defenses that ranked in the bottom quarter.  25 points against Wyoming (86th), 55 against UNLV (116th), 49 against CSU (104th), 40 against New Mexico (120th, dead last), and 52 against UTEP (66th).  So yes, BYU's offense was rolling at the end of the season.  But against the one good defense they played, they only managed 16 points.

Cody Hoffman made a lot of plays, but he was also more open.  Heaps looked a lot more comfortable in the pocket, but he wasn't getting chased around as much.  The OL was opening up huge holes and the RBs were finding them with ease, but that was against smaller and less talented front 7's.  A quick look at the back half of BYU's schedule in 2011 and I would say they will finish as strong as they did in 2010.  The first half of the season will be the key indicator.  Fantasize all you want about how good BYU's offense will be in 2011, but remember that they have not proved anything against anyone yet.

With that said, I still expect BYU to average over 31 points/game.  There are 4 games they should easily score over 42 points (San Jose State, Idaho State, Idaho, New Mexico State), only 3 games where they may not break 20 (Texas, Utah, TCU, still COULD score score, but may not), and the rest should be somewhere in between.  That averages out to about 31 points/game.  At home, I expect them to average about 40 points/game, while winning by an average of 15-20 points/game.  They should absolutely beat San Jose State, Idaho State, Idaho, and New Mexico State by 4 TDs and Utah State by 2-3 TDs.  Utah and UCF are still wild cards as far as margin of victory (or victory, period).