Obviously, the easy thing to debate this week is the 3rd and 6 play call by BYU late in the 4th. Although, I don't think anyone is really waffling about that play: it stunk, and everyone knows it! Even Anae admitted as much...
BYU managed to squeeze 93 plays into 1551 seconds of possession. That means BYU got off one play every 16.7 seconds. The average of each play is generally 5-6 seconds, so realistically, that amounts to running a play 11 seconds after the previous one. Now this approach to measuring plays is a bit simplistic as it doesn't account for incompletions (of which there were many) and brief clock stoppages for first downs and players going out of bounds. However, absent the time to review every single play, it's an easy measure for me to look at. [Contrast that with BYU's home opener against Washington State last season where BYU ran 78 plays in 2134 seconds, or one play every 27.4 seconds, to give you an idea of just how "fast and hard" BYU went against Virginia.]
I recognize that the hurry-up offense is big right now in college football, but the trends I saw the most over the weekend was for other teams to hurry-up only after first downs or in critical short down and distance situations. Those teams tend to be more successful, in my opinion. As has been well documented, teams that ran 88+ plays over the weekend went 3-7. Going fast is good, hurrying is bad.
I believe the hurry-up offense is an effective weapon to have in any team's arsenal, particularly in this day and age. However, I'm waffling on Anae's decision to make this the full-time offense. Or, even if it remains so, perhaps shooting for a little more time between plays, say 22 seconds between plays instead of 16.7 seconds. That is still plenty quick. It does not leave enough time for defensive substitutions. The defense does have more time to get set, but it also allows Taysom Hill time to read the defense, to adjust routes of the WRs, or to identify mismatches he can exploit.
What If BYU Played "Normal"?
Making some simplistic assumptions that everything else stays the same, I want to go through an intellectual approach to BYU's strategy and how it potentially impacted the game. Let's just say that BYU split the difference between what they actually did this year and what happened last season in its opener, so say BYU ran one play every 22 seconds instead of every 16.7 seconds, as I suggest above. If BYU would have done that, Virginia would not have gotten their final drive of the first half that ended up with a long FG make. BYU lead 7-3 at the half, but it would have been 7-0. The first possession would have taken one minute longer, 2 other possessions would have added 30 seconds each for an additional minute off the clock. Basically, the final possession of the half would have been Taysom's TD pass to JD Falslev, followed by Virginia getting the ball and ultimately having to punt/run the clock out.
In the second half, BYU drove 92 yards in 11 plays, using 2 minutes and 17 seconds. That drive would have ended with about 3 minutes left on the clock instead of 6:26. UVa then fumbled the ensuing kickoff. At that point, BYU ran the ball 3 times, getting one first down, and throwing an incompletion. BYU would have had the ball in field goal range, with under 3 minutes to go, with Virginia only having one timeout. BYU would have taken more time between plays and probably would have run on 3rd and 11 from the 18 instead of throwing it. So BYU would have kicked a FG to go up 8 and given Virginia the ball back with less than a minute, no timeouts, and down 8 points. At that point, anything could have happened. If BYU had slowed its pace down just a little bit, BYU would have still run 78 plays, scored 17 points, and probably would have won 17-9.
I know there are games where the pace might be the difference on the positive side, but against Virginia, going hard EVERY play cost BYU. That and their final 3 possessions...I propose Anae slows it down just a little bit on every play and only go with into hyper-speed after first downs. That's what I'm waffling about this week.
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