Comments On D and Third Down Plays

Football
1

I would love to see defensive third down statistics for D-1 (if someone has them, please advise where to find). Reason - if there are 128 teams in Div. 1 football, BYU has to rank 129th or worse.

My take.

  1. Defense backfield is absolutely horrible, either from an ability standpoint or coaching standpoint. I understand you keep with your man, but come on, when you see his eyes light up and you know where he’s looking and going, wouldn’t it make sense to at least take a quick look as to where the ball is going. BYU’s backs absolutely stink at this and are clueless 90% of the time and hence either illegally just throw up their hands without looking back (quick flag) or run into the receiver (quick flag) or allow a reception when physically, they were in a good position to break up the play or even intercept the ball - if they had some idea where the ball is actually at.
  2. Bronco knows his guys can’t cover more than a few seconds and yet loves to rush just three guys on third and long? What is that all about. Get the ball out of the qb’s hands, possibly before anyone can even get to the first down line. I believe if an honest and complete review where done, Bronco would quickly recognise that the three man rush is a huge problem for the team most of the time he employees it while getting after it has led to more good things by far.
  3. BYU’s crop of linebackers this year are the most unsound position and tackling unit BYU has had in that group for a long, long time. They have heart, and they can hit - but they play real dumb, end up out of position and don’t wrap up. Is that coaching or just dumb players? As stated, it’s not their physicial ability, it’s everything else.
2

Rudi: Interesting post about the DB’s. I agree with your first two points and agree that our defense stunk it up in most third down situations yesterday against Mizzou. How is it that BYU can play a not so good team and make them brilliant on third down. I am as perplexed as you. I don’t understand how our DB’s can be so bad. To me it does show the lack of depth that BYU has on its defense. Our offense wasn’t much better when they were on the field. Over all this game was played worse than the San Jose St. game.Our defensive coaching was not good and the offense rarely opened up to win on crucial plays. It just goes to show that BYU can play P-5 teams, but can the team beat them?

3

You would think that P5 teams would want to play BYU as we are so good at making their players and team look like world beaters.