vs. No. 6 Oklahoma, Nov. 18 — 7.5% chance of winning.
at Oklahoma State, Nov. 25 — 27.7% chance of winning.
I have said @ home vs. ISU all season long. Go Robbins, Go Defense.
The reason why Robbins: BYU has struggled big time at getting 3rd downs and extending drives. A big bull dozer like Robbins may just be the ticket to keep drives alive. In the TTU game, BYU had by far it’s best rushing out put this season.
I’m going to stay with my W/L predictions I made from last April - Had and have Byu beating Texas.
I only went against my April picks one time - vs TCU - and got smoked. Dummy me. Will stick with my April picks rest of way.
Score for UT: BYU 38 “Shorn Horns” 36 Going 3 overtime, baby! (if math and overtime rules work that way, don’t know).
BTW to all. Keep on providing all the insights. Enjoy it so much and I am not near as knowledgeable as ya’ll so keep 'em coming and really appreciate it.
As Tom says. UT has better athletes at every single position. I’ll say a first team to 30 points and since Byu can’t generate offence it will be ut by at least two touchdowns.
Can’t disagree with what you and fish said - I’ll give the probability of a BYU win at 5 to 10%.
BUT, Houston and Wyoming played them pretty close and we were at least as good as those teams.
It’s on ABC, so hope we are not thoroughly embarrassed.
I hope the BYU defense can get some rest against Texas. If BYU can come within 45-50% of the TOP of Texas then the game will be within 10 pts. However I do not think that is a realistic possibility. BYU will be manhandled by Texas and the BYU offense will stink up the luxury suite wherein ARod sits to call the game. He can’t compete mentally vs Texas or any team that is good.
Our D is not terrible. Our secondary is actually good, even with walk-ons starting. The problem with our D is that A) we don’t get any sacks (we are129th out of 130 D1 teams) and B) we don’t get any tackles for loss (127th out of 130), and thus C) we rarely force opponents into 3rd and longs, and D) THEREFORE it’s no surprise that we are 100th in 3rd down defense.
With no pass rush or TFL, we will continue to struggle to get off the field on 3rd down. Since our run game sucks and ARod has so far REFUSED TO ADJUST and throw short passes, we rarely have long, time-consuming drives. The logical result is that we will continue to have low TOP, and we will continue to rely purely on turnovers and luck to win any more games.
UT has put up over 30 every game. I don’t care if they have a backup QB, because they have an advantage at almost every position on the field. And their backup QB is a former 4 star recruit (93, so just BARELY shy of a 5 star), is 6’5"/240 and has a rocket arm. Their 3rd string guy was the #1 recruit in the entire country. So yeah…
UT has turned the ball over 7 times in 7 games and is not going to gift us 5 like TTU did.
UT 38-17. If we keep it to within 14 I’ll be proud of our guys. If we win it will rival the Miracle Bowl.
Those are awful defensive stats. I was under the impressioin that we had a great D coordinator. That should be reflected in the statistics being at least decent. Why don’t we have more sacks or tackles for loss? Strange.
First, we do have a great DC, the problem is that the current crop of players are not up to the level that we need. Which brings me to the second point, every change in DC’s takes time for the players to learn and know when and how to do things.
When Bronco came in, did he have “instant” success? No, it took time for him to get the players he needed. It has been reported that Jay Hill changed the way that BYU looks at recruits.
Here’s my opinion as to why we don’t get sacks or TFL: we simply don’t have good enough players in our front 7. There is not a single guy in our current front 7 who regularly wins the 1v1 that you need to do to get a sack or a TFL. Batty is our best DL by a mile but where would he rank on most B12, SEC, or B10 teams? Yup.
IMO, three things Jay Hill has brought to BYU so far are:
Heckard and Garrett, two of our 3 best DBs,
man coverage, which makes football far more fun to watch (and results in TOs), and
significantly less drama off the field (compared to when Tuiaki was DC).
These 3 things are all very valuable, but don’t get us sacks. We need more athletic and better players in our front 7. PS Esera seems like a step in the right direction, and IIRC, he was going to Utah before we signed Hill.
To me, it’s more important to knock down passes and stop teams on 3rd and 4th downs than sacking QBs. Especially when playing against a mobile QB.
To your point, we need quicker players to do more defensive plays than just trying to swim through blockers.