ND Outcome Exactly As Predicted

Me before the game:
“Kalani KNOWS that our soft scheme concedes snaps and TOP, and he is obviously OK with that. So it is actually part of our game plan to allow our greatest weapons—our QB and our WR—to play less than half the game. That is sheer madness. ND will win, Sitake will say all the same things (I have to do a better job of preparing my team), but will never ever lay the blame where it belongs, and we will play in the modern equivalent of the Poulan Weedeater Bowl.”

Kalani even gave the same quote he gives after every game in which our soft serve vanilla defense gets obliterated.

This game is 10x worse than the Oregon game, because coming in we already knew our weakness, and Kalani did absolutely NOTHING to address it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: BYU will never be great as long as Kalani’s devotion to Tuiaki is greater than his devotion to the program. BYU’s season is now over, with all the rest of the games being completely meaningless and nothing to play for.

Excited to see all the new faces on the basketball team this year.

We have 6 more games and a bowl game to be excited about. You go watch your basketball. I’ll watch it too. Had the referees called two PI’s we most likely would have won the game. The calls on offense also cost us a game. 4 straight running plays, again? Guess we need a new offense coordinator too? We have a great chance of being 10-2. Nothing wrong with that.

Tom,
The ONLY WAY that things will change for BYU is if some of the main donors for the Cougars club forces Tom Holmoe’s hand to force Kalani to fire his beloved cousin.

I think Kalani would quit before doing that. which may or may not be a good thing

Those donors would have to agree with you arm chair coaches. I’m guessing they don’t. I’m guess they support their beloved Cougars.

Once again, Tuiaki is one of Kalani’s closest friends, but they are not cousins. Fesi and Kalani are cousins.

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So much confusion no one can see the forest from the trees. The Oregon game had the same issue. The offense stunk up the first half and got too far behind for the defense to be successful. Too many 3 and outs. At least with the ND game, the defense didn’t let ND run away with the score in the 2nd half. Defense gave up only 10 points. Had BYU scored a couple more times in the first half, we would have won the game because of the defense bend but don’t break. Most are focusing in on the wrong trees.

Before the game, I said we had to do 4 things in order to win.

1- run the ball. I would say 160 yds was enough- check

2- play to our strengths, Our NFL QB was banged up in the USU game, they kept it hidden and it showed on the 1st play. Interseption…Nacua- 0 receptions, Romney 1 for 8 yds, Rex 1 for 6 yds. Epps showed up big time but 120 total yards for the entire game and a 54 QB ratting? What the hell??? Hall has his worst game ever. If it weren’t for Epps, I would give the passing game an F-.

3-Slow the ND rushing game. 232 yds says Tuiaki failed. Fire him.

4- lastly, my pet pev… Don’t get beat by their studs!
My scouting report says, ND had NFL talent at running back ( Estime) got 97 yds on 14 carries. Fail!
I also said that ND has a TE, perhaps the best in all college football, (Michael Mayer), 11 catches-118 yds, almost half of ND’s passing production, pretty much all on 3rd downs . QB Payne pretty much starred down his prize TE, did not even look away once and we can’t defend that??? Fire Tuiaki again. Can we fire the same guy twice?

Don’t get me started on the special teams

To say that BYU had 2 chances to win or tie the game in the final 10 minutes says ND is not that good or BYU is very good but suffers from poor coaching.
Welcome to another meaningless season

I guess it’s meaningless if your only goal is to be 12-0 and win the National Championship. That’s pretty pathetic to think that’s it in life and football. So, I’m going to say there is something to shoot for in every game, win.

With that said. Most teams have one or two weaknesses. Some have more. We have one glaring weakness and that is mainly with the offense. 1st half play is a challenge now. Last 5 games have seen poor starts. You can complain all you want about the defense but the offense is causing the challenges with getting behind in games or close scores against weak teams. Against ND, what is going on? Hall says the shoulder was fine. And, in the second half, he had zip and accuracy on his throws. He and the receivers were finally on the same page. We should have no excuses to get down 18-6 at half time. And, that time of possessing thing, it doesn’t end up so lopsided because we have the ball longer scoring touchdowns and maybe field goals. That also makes it more difficult for the other teams to score as much too.

Still a chance to go 11-2 but I am not holding my breath. Arkansan QB was out against Mississippi St and is supposed to be real good and back for BYU. If Hall is still not 100% that could be another loss. Arkansas is 3-3 but when you look at who they have played they still might be good enough to easily beat BYU. I guess we will find out.

LIberty could be a tough road game and is no gimme, Boise not very good this year but appear to have righted the ship somewhat, not a gimme on the road, East Carolina should be a win but could be tough. Utah Tech is a gimme. Stanford not that good but on the road could be tough. BYU could be as bad as 5-7 or as good as 11-2. How is that for non-commital. They were impressive the first 2 games and not very impressive since. They have been good in the second half of the last 3 games but haven’t looked good at all in the first half of those games.

Notre Dame was an expected loss but their dominance in some facets of the game, notwithstanding the close score, has given some of the Deseret News sports writers some major heartburn. I would like to think the real BYU was the team that made the game competitive in the 2nd half. Notre Dame may be rounding into form as the kind of team they were supposed to be going into the season and not the team that lost to Marshall and struggled against Cal.They always have one of the best recruiting classes in the country and ours is usually somewhere just south of the top 70 so the talent disparity could be a real thing.

I don’t know what was going on in the first half. By the way Hall played in the second half, he is fine. No injuries as he said so himself. The entire team came out flat and confused.

77 plays to 46? 41 to 19 minutes TOP? Excuse me while I lie on the floor and laugh like a hyena. A coach with guts would put 8 guys in the box and say YOU WILL NOT RUN THE BALL TODAY, and all 8 would be moving forward on the snap. The result would be a few long passes over the top, but who cares, as long as we have an NFL QB? AND IT WOULD BE FUN TO WATCH.

I watch BYU football for fun. I love BYU, I love football, and I want to enjoy watching it. I want BYU to win every game, but I don’t get my identify from BYU’s record and don’t get depressed when we lose.

Herein lies Sitake’s crime against BYU fans: his devotion to Tuiaki has MADE BYU FOOTBALL NO FUN TO WATCH. Game in and game out we see teams dominate our soft serve vanilla D and play keepaway. It’s no fun. Period. How often did LaVell–or Bronco for that matter–coach a BYU game that was no fun to watch? HARDLY EVER. How often is a Sitake game no fun to watch? Most of them, and now 4 in a row and counting.

KJ Jefferson is a wild stud running the ball, and is also a 65% passer. He’s bigger than Taysom Hill, almost as tough, and almost as fast. I will make the same prediction I made before the ND game: BYU passive, Arkansas runs for 200+, we all have to suffer through 3 hours of watching BYU get ground into the turf–again.

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They should fire him in person AND by mail. Does that count twice?

This BYU team, with a future NFL QB and more returning starters than any other team in the country, was supposed to be good. No one should be fooled by the relatively close score vs ND. 77 plays to 46 plays and 41 to 19 TOP is total, complete domination. But for a couple red zone plays, that game would have gotten WAY out of hand very early.

Baylor is now looking like a good but not great team (3-2 with all wins over TERRIBLE teams). BYU has been manhandled in every other game and beat 2 bad teams only because we had Jaren Hall and WYU and USU didn’t.

BYU currently 92nd in the country in 3rd down defense.
BYU currently 103rd in the country in sacks.
BYU currently 118th in the country in time of possession.

Kalani Sitake is obviously OK with this, because the stats are the result of an INTENTIONAL SCHEME. I’m not OK with it, because it’s boring to watch, allows good teams to just toy with us, and allows bad teams to stick around long enough to make the outcome too close for comfort.

I am very curious to see if Kalani makes significant changes in his defensive scheme this week. If we don’t stack the box and bring a significant amount of blitzes–particularly run blitzes–against Arkansas, they will dominate TOP and BYU will lose again.

HAHAHA!!! Ya, line up 8 in the box and watch Mayer catch 40 passes and score 10 touchdowns! Brilliant! Take a deep breath Larimer…
Sitaki’s crime against BYU? Now you sound like a Utah troll. Deep breaths, deep breaths…

The fact that Kalani uses the same “verbiage” game in and game out tells you that he doesn’t really have a clue how to fix the problem.

The rankings for defense is pretty bad, I would say something worse, but you know…

92 out of 125 FCS schools
103rd out of 125 FCS schools
118th out of 125 FCS schools

Kind of hard when your offense has two series of one play and interception and one play safety to keep the defense on the field. And, refs that won’t call holding (most plays) and PI’s. If the offense would make more 3rd down plays keeping the ball longer, the defense would no rack up so many statistics. It’s funny how you can’t understand this ying-yang principle.
So, we were mixing up defenses. We ran few 3-8 prevent defenses. When we did, QB has all day to wait for Mayer to get open. When we rush 6, Mayer and others are open. Yet, in the 2nd half, our D holds ND to 10 points. That’s because our offense was much better and had the ball more. The offense is a major culprit in poor time of possession.

Its time to let Tuiaki go. Most frustrating part of the game was watching “Baby Gronk” (ND TE Mayer) run wild. Anybody remember how BYU used its timeouts in the 1st half? They were used while BYU was on defense. I could almost read Kalani’s mind … “What in the world is Tuiaki doing? There is nobody even lined up in front of the All American TE and they only need 2 yards! Better call time out!”

Well, what about the offense? They were just as bad in the first half. Hall was in lala land. The moment was too big mentally. The glory years had potenent offenses that simply outscored teams. That’s what we need

Always the excuses Scott, never holding those that are responsible for a piss poor performance (coaches).

Offense has nothing to do with the defense being 92nd out of 125 schools in 3rd down defenses.

Or 103rd out 125 schools in sacking the QB…

That is ALL on the DEFENSE.

See, you are unable to see the entire picture. The offense has a direct impact on the defense. When they score, there is an emotional excitement that pumps up the defense. When the offense goes down the field and takes up 5 minutes, that’s time the defense is resting while the opponent’s defense is on the field more. The less time our offense is on the field the more time our defense is on the field giving up more yardage. Of course the offense directly affects the defense.