BYU season report card and where we really stand

Football
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I’m going to say something here that is hard for Cougar nation to swallow but BYU most likely would be a tossup in a Utah matchup had they played.

1 BYU put together an amazing season considering the pandemic. Tom Holmoe should be AD of the year!!!
2 Yes our season was full of cupcakes and that artificially inflated our numbers but:

3 BYU has a top 10 offensive team with top 3 QB, Wilson supported by a NFL running back, Algiers, and 2 NFL caliber receivers, Rex and Milne, and possibly 2 more, Romney and Pau’u.
4 In no way is BYU even close to the top 12 or even top 30 defense that we were ranked. That is a false narrative. CC and SDSU exposed BYU for it really is. We get to see what every team out there did after we played them. Navy was a bust, it launched BYU into the stratosphere but in the end, Navy was way down. BSU, working on fumes with a 3rd string QB allowed BYU to inflate ridiculous numbers. I still can’t respond to why their defense rolled over, it happens. CC worked us over, a defensive MESS. And I can understand SDSU, Without Algiers, BYU struggled. With Algier, BYU would have 2 more scores .SDSU could argue that the frozen Tundra @BYU cost their QB a score and possibly the game. just throwing that out there.
5 would BYU had this special year if we played the P5 schedule?
2020 BYU Football Schedule | FBSchedules.com
so looking at our pre-covid schedule.
@Utah, BYU win, Sept. Utah had no QB ready. Today, I would not bet against Utah, as BYU could not stop the run, hence, tossup.
Mich St, Easy win
@ ASU, I guess a win, They put 70 on AZ and got their HC fired. Could we stop them? IDK?
@ Minn, Win. Poor team
The G5s, all wins
@ Stanford, Tossup Loss. They went on the road and won @Cal, Wash, and Or State. We’d of played them at Stanford
.I do think that the P5 schedule would of gotten BYU players hurt and by attrition, BYU could of lost some easy games without key personal. IDK.

6 BYU would not of gotten a NY6 game if we had gone 10-0. CFP will prove that P5 championships weigh more then all the G5 gold in the land. Case in point (if both Cinncy and CC win out) mark it down.

Bring on UCF, It will be a fun game as neither team cares too much about defense, should be lots of scoring and a shootout. BYU will lose if we run a 3 rush-drop 8 defense. Cheers.

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You said sometimes defenses “rollover.” So, we can chalk that up to CC. Enough. We shut SDSU for 3 quarters. Great defense.
During the glory years, we beat mostly cupcakes. So does Alabama. Enough of that. 10-1 great season. Had our offense scored 28 against CC we would be 11-0. No negatives here. Just a great matchup with UCF in the Boca Raton Bowl.

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Really is that why we were 7-7 in the first, 14-14 in the second? The defense shut them down for three quarters?

I agree with Fish, the defense has issues, the main one coming from our DC. We have the talent to be a top 10 defense, unfortunately we do not have a good to decent DC.

I want to bring up a point about Kalani as DC… I know many will choke on this, but the truth is Kalani was only a good DC at one place “Utah” under the tutelage of Whittingham.

If you don’t believe me? Go look at Oregon State Defensive stats when Kalani was DC under Anderson there.

We “NEED” a good DC to go along with seems to be an improving offensive staff.

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I would agree that the Utah game would be a tossup right now. They have been looking better each week. They have a lot of young players but the times I have watched them it was obvious they have a lot of talent and they seem to be in a spot now where they just reload instead of rebuild. It is sad to say that as a BYU fan but it appears to be the case. If both teams were still in the Mountain West we wouldn’t be seeing the disparity in talent we are now. I still lament the effective breakup of the Mountain West at a time they were getting Boise, Nevada, and Fresno when all those programs were strong. The Mountain West would have had an argument for P5 status with the addition of Boise to go with BYU, Utah & TCU.

I am convinced the P5 conferences raided the Mountain West and the Big East to keep their exclusive little country club. The Big East was part of the then P6 but they were destroyed by the ACC and Big Twelve. It looks like their is no beating the p5 cartel so you just have to hope you can join one of their club. They aren’t interested in expanding the club to include other conferences. I wish the NCAA would step in and establish a real playoff system like they do in the NAIA and so forth. Let 16 teams compete and refuse to recognized the champion of the BCS as an NCAA champion. Maybe even sanction teams that compete in a system that is an obvious monopoly. You can still seed teams based on strength of schedule but a least it gives the G5s a shot. One of the reasons the BCS was formed was to keep a BYU 1984 scenario from happening again.

Back to the topic! Utah should have beaten Washington. They looked great for a half. I am glad we aren’t playing them right now. Better to play them early in the season next year.

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So true, Witt has always and will always have a top 5 defense unit. He robs his best athletes from offense and loads the D, then plays ball control with great RBs. Wilson is LUCKY he did not land at Utah, he would not be talking Heisman had he landed there.
San Diego STs lack of scoring in the Second may be more of Frozen Tundra then our Defense. Their QB had a clear path and slipped on 4th down with a minute thirty. They would of made the game a nail bitter had they scored.

True true true.

Now that just makes too much sense. BCS stands for Only Elites play for pay.
2 loss ISU proves the bias, they lost to Louisiana by 14 and stand ahead of undefeated CC, who beat LU.

1 Like
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You are wasting your breath-we defeated a very mediocre SDSU team that had a good defense and a mediocre offense. We were dominated in time of possession and lost the total yardage. SDSU came away empty in the red zone twice towards the latter stages of the game, which was a compliment to the defense, but against a good offense spells trouble for this defense, to where the offense needs to carry this team. And you are right about the Oregon State debacle, who are just starting to come out of that period

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Cherry picking one quarter and dismissing the 3 quarters of shutout. Pretty petty Floyd. Great defense!

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The media wants to talk about BYU’s great D stopping SDSU 3 times on 4th down?..xovkehncokethneonaenklseneklerfvnlse…Oh, pardon me, that was me trying to type as I was falling off my chair laughing out loud. Yes, Gabe Summers made a PRIME TIME PLAY to stop them on 4th and short when it mattered. The second stop was when their QB was in the process of literally jogging into the end zone when he slipped and fell. The third was a snap under the QB’s legs that never left the ground. #s 2 and 3, my friends, were pure luck and NOTHING to do with good defense.

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Preach, Señor Burton! When an allegedly top 10 offense with a Heisman candidate QB and a bunch of potential NFL talent is OUTGAINED by one of the lousiest offenses in the country, I call that a TERRIBLE job done by the BYU defense! For almost the entire game, SDSU repeatedly marched down the field with very little resistance. How can we say BYU has a great defense–even a good defense–when a TERRIBLE offense continually rams it down our throat, converts over and over on third down (at one point SDSU was 9/13 on 3rd down conversions), and keeps our great offense standing around freezing their butts off on the sideline??? Your VERY SALIENT POINT at the end is well taken: BYU will continually underperform against average teams and consistently lose to good teams when our game plan is to keep our offense on the sideline. Let’s not kid ourselves: Sitake isn’t stupid–OF COURSE HE KNOWS that our scheme–rushing 3 or 4, dropping 7 or 8 on nearly every play–will allow average offenses to grind the clock. Sitake knows it, the players know it, and we know it. But he can’t do anything about it without firing or embarrassing Tuiaki, and I don’t see KS doing that.

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Honestly: were almost all of us not just simply suffering watching these last two games, when the other team had the ball close to 40 minutes?

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I know I was and a friend of mine in West Jordan said he was throwing pillows at the television :+1:. Anyone saying it was good defense-must have meant high school​:smile:. How did the Ducks get in the championship game?

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Just win! In 16 degree temperatures, that’s part of the game too. It’s more than just players. So, no excuses for SDSU. BYU players had to stay up to win. Same Ice on the field.

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I would really like to know: How can Sitake be a good to great HC and still keep his buddy / relative as DC. On top of that fire Detmer after ONE bad sesaon while Detmer had 9 wins his first season. The 2 do not add up to a good to great HC to me. I think Sitake would be gone in the SEC or other P5 programs with that situation.

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You are forgetting that BYU’s middle name is nepotism. It is so prevalent in every aspect of the school and athletic department. Because there is nothing in place to check and balance this issue, it runs rampant. There are other factors as well but that is the most glaring. It happens with regularity.

Sorry, it’s the truth. There are so many names of players, etc. now that I remember because their Dad, uncle, relative played at BYU. I’m surprised some guys haven’t changed their name to match a former player or popular player in an effort to increase the likelihood of getting a scholarship.

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That rings true at least to some extent. However, that does not answer my question as to how Sitake can be considered a great or even good HC with those decisions. To me, he is not a good HC. He may be a good recruiter or another narrow characteristic of a good HC but not with Tuiaki (sp) and Detmer decisions, be a good overall HC. With Detmer he was willing to sacrifice and scapegoat one of the top 3 BYU FB players of all time - a man converted while at BYU. Now he is sacrificing his players, coaches and program for the sake of his good buddy. Not the hallmark of a champion HC.

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I don’t remember winning 9 games with Detmer. Did we? If we did was his cousin the DC that year?
10-1 is pretty good coaching. Nice season with some blowouts.

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Neither one of those things should matter. Also, unless you are absolutely sure that is how it all went down then those are pretty strong accusations to be making. Perhaps Detmer had other things going on that distracted him from coaching like he wanted to. Maybe it had something to do with getting ripped off by some trusty money manager or some scam that members of the church like to do to other members of the church. Maybe Detmer didn’t like it that well and so he wanted to go back to Texas where he is from. There are lots of possible reasons…

Just trying to lend perspective here.

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What little birdie told you all about Detmer?

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Just learned of a death in the family. You know what, let BYU have their little BS. Forget I posted - I don’t give a d___n.

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Wash had a Covid outbreak. USC-Oregon has a nice ring to it.