The BYU Sports Blog

Because I spent most of my growing-up years in Singapore, I learned about many different Asian philosophies and theories. The most common one, Yin and Yang, refers to finding balance in two opposites. Literally, Yin means “negative” and Yang means “positive.” Well, that is pretty much what happened during the last two football games, from the players to my personal health in relation to the team. With the first two football games of the season in the books, the slightly younger Cougar squad has shown signs of promise, and simultaneously, signs of youth (go figure).

Against Washington, these are the main things that went well: a two-quarterback system, an effective secondary, no turnovers for the entire day (even though there were a few fumbles), productive second half adjustments (second half score: BYU 10, Washington 0), a strong offensive line, and a sweet Riley option.

Against Air Force, these are the main things that contributed to the loss: a two-quarterback frenzy with no flow at all, a few secondary breakdowns (although Andrew Rich led the team in tackles again), three turnovers (two lost fumbles, one interception), a total lack of second half adjustments, a struggling offensive line, and a weak option play because of a total of 10 receptions on the day. TEN RECEPTIONS FOR THE WHOLE GAME! I want to look into it, but that may be the least number of pass completions by a BYU offense ever.

I know that a portion of those will simply come with the development of players and the decision (if there will be one) of a quarterback, but the thing that shocked me the most was the lack of adjustment in the second half. Against Washington, BYU had some adjustments to make defensively. For the most part they were able to stop Washington, but a few hiccups led to two touchdowns and a field goal by the end of the first half. In the second half, BYU’s defense was up for the challenge. In the three drives Washington had in the 3rd quarter, they never got past their own 43 yard line. In the fourth quarter, the defense came up with the only sack of the game and made two critical fourth down deflections. On one of those, my hat goes off to Brian Logan. He gave up practically a foot to Jermaine Kearse, but he fought around Kearse on a pass to the end zone on fourth down to knock the ball incomplete.

However, against Air Force in the second half, BYU had two drives that were 5 plays, two drives that were 7 plays, and one 9 play drive. Playing against Air Force’s triple option defense is hard work. Just try to defend it with four manual players on an X-Box. Then think what it’s like for those that are actually in the game. The offense wasn’t able to give the defense enough time to rest and regroup, and as a result, Air Force’s offense ran all over the field (literally).

Try filling up these couches and then stopping the Air Force option on this screen

Even though this game was very difficult to watch, my favorite moment occurred at about halfway through the third quarter when things went from bad to frustrating. After an incomplete pass from Riley Nelson to Luke Ashworth way too far out of bounds to be worth anything, an Air Force cornerback still bumped up against Ashworth to make sure he was out of bounds, and Ashworth promptly threw him over the BYU bench. I can’t find a link for it, but if anyone can find that, please, show it to me. I took that as a really good sign for the team, showing that things weren’t going how they wanted and they were frustrated like crazy. Now, all we can do is look to this weekend and hope that we play against Florida State like we played against Oklahoma last season. Maybe we’ll win 47-17 or something.