Great final score. BYU played physical and bested a mid-level team, playing on the road, at altitude. However, not one to take it easy on the 2-2 Cougars who play a darn good football team in 7 days, there are some serious concerns. First, 5 turnovers. Second, 9 penalties for 80 yards. Third, 26 minutes of possession. Fourth, only forcing 1 turnover.
It just shows the disparity in talent level when you can be -4 in turnovers, -7.5 in time of possession, and commit a lot of high yardage penalties and still win by 27. The BYU defense has been amazing on all but about 6 plays the entire season. However, as phenomenal as it has been, it has only forced 3 turnovers the entire season. That was the difference in losses against UVa and Utah. BYU had opportunities to intercept passes in crucial situations and didn't get it done. Utah scored after a missed BYU pick. Middle Tennessee did the same tonight. Against Virginia, BYU twice had chances for INTs that would have given a struggling offense a chance to start in field goal range. Being -4 in turnovers is the offense's fault, but only forcing 3 turnovers in 4 games is the difference between 4-0 and 2-2. I understand the defense can't do everything but right now there are 3 things it isn't doing right now and that is one. The other two are kind of combined: they aren't taking away the short passes and yet they still give up big plays over the top. I have not figured out the strategy for BYU's pass defense yet. Huge cushions, which result in a lot of 3rd and medium conversions, but still 6 pass plays have gone for big yardage against them. And typically in critical situations...
Offensively, it was nice to see Taysom efficient with the football on the ground and through the air. I think the zone defense helped a lot. However, Utah State is going to do what the Utes did and BYU is going to have to respond a little better than they did last week. They will load the box. They will play tight, physical, man defense on the outside. They will blitz from the edge to keep Taysom's legs contained. They will force BYU to be one-dimensional and make Taysom beat them with his arm. They will accept him throwing for 300 yards and 3 TDs and lose. They will not accept him rushing for 100 yards or 15 yards/carry. That will not happen. If he does that, it's because they had a bad day tackling.
There are a couple of firsts for Taysom. He completed over 50% of his passes, which had not happened this season prior to the game against the Blue Raiders. He averaged more than 6 yards/attempt (actually 9.3 tonight after a previous season high of 5.4). He ran and threw for over 150 each tonight. I think the play-calling tonight was designed to get Hill comfortable with the short to intermediate passing game. BYU will need that next week against a blitzing, aggressive, multi-faceted Utah State defense.
The receivers look more comfortable catching the ball as well. After a rough patch early on, it seems they also figured out what to do after they catch the ball (most of them weren't used to catching the ball AND having space to run afterwards). There are plenty of opportunities for that next week against a lot of man coverage!
Anyway, great win. BYU did what it was supposed to do: beat up and pound an inferior opponent. They more than tripled them on the scoreboard, they more than doubled them in yards, and they played more than double the number of third/fourth stringers. Next week, it's on. The winner gets to be little brother for the next year. The loser has to be the baby brother...Utes get to hold onto big brother for a while since they don't play Utah State until 2015 and BYU until 2016. This year they did what big brothers are supposed to do: they just play their game and wait for little bro to screw up and capitalize. Of course, both little brothers likely will have dates for the prom, while Utah might be sitting at home cashing a big fat check, watching them play in late December while they cash a much smaller check...
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