Went to the game, sort of, So BYU lets about 200 people come to their pre game show at the media center. we hang out with Dave Mecan, Fowler and Nixon, ask them anything, then the big screen comes down and we watch the game.
So keys to the win.
1 QB play. No doubt Hall could be the starter. He is calm, great touch and this legs, He has a lot of Steve Young attributes. He did take a bige hit on his last TD so he may be done for the year…2 concussions not good.
Cool hand luke comes in and does not miss a beat. This Romney cat must have a heart beat of about 16. Time to give him a scholarship. either guy will win for BYU. I hear Wilson is about ready but dang these QBs are special.
2 Estupa may be done. Does not protect the ball. Katoa and Finau are more then capable. They can hit a hole, stop, change directions and break a big one any time.
3 Our linebackers have 11 of the 12 interceptions for the year, unheard-of, Wilger, a fr. leads the pack with 3…the drop back 8 appears to be working (we do cough up 1st downs but hey)
4 Anyone catch that Kafentzis (our version of Tysom Hill) was in on D and knocked that last ball free.
5 Tonga terrorizes Olines, you really need 3 blockers on that guy.
6 Our receivers are not dropping any balls now. Romney to Romney TD pass made history as the 1st BYU brothers to score a TD.
7 if you were to tell me that BYU would blow our USU without a singe catch from Bushman, you would get a big eye roll from me…just sayin.
8 we had few playmkers to start the year…now, I can count five or six on each side of the ball and most of them are underclassmen. BYU should win out the season including their bowl game. If we had not Iliakied the Toledo, USF games, BYU would be ranked high right now.
Well, agree with all of that. But, Romney is hurt too. Bad foot. Liberty can score. If Romney can’t go, can Critchlow do it? I wish they would have let him throw a couple last night. Not for touchdowns. Just to throw in a game for experience.
1 Those QBs are special. I like Hall a lot but two concussions are not good. How did Steve Young didn’t have any concussion and boy he had a great career at BYU and 49ers. I think Hall need to call it quit and stick with baseball. Having head injury can be long term which is not good. Romney is better what I think compare to Wilson and Critchlow.
2 Estupa is not productive and let other guys run more.
3 Linebackers Interceitions - I love it!
4 Kafentzis = Taysom Hill: Agreed
5 Tonga. I would sure love to have him stay for his senior year. What a beast!
6. Receivers - keep it up on catching more of them. Romney to Romney TD - more to come!
7. Matt Bushman - I was wondering why no stats about him last night. A win is a BIG WIN!
8. Young Playmkers!!! Next year we will have them back and more.
Dave (me): I didn’t see the game but listened to it but fell a sleep at the start 2nd half. I checked later and found USU had over 500+ yards against us. We need to do better than that on defense.
By far BYU’s most complete, best game including USC. Gives one hope for the future-7-5 maybe 8-5 by years end
Fish: “If we had not Iliakied the Toledo, USF games, BYU would be ranked high right now.”
Even if we did beat those two, we still be rank upper 20’s. Bosie State moved up a couple when almost lost to SJSU. Those people who put in their votes are not being honest.
I was thinking the same thing about Hall sticking with baseball. That helmet hit wasn’t that hard but it appears he has like a glass jaw. However, Young did have concussions in college as well as in the NFL. But, that wasn’t looked at carefully back then. So, they still played with concussions. It was the same with McMahon.
When we give up 531 yards but only give up 14 points, that’s good. We really made things tough for Love. He’s not ready for the NFL.
I didn’t realize that and maybe that was because I was not paying attention too much while I was a student at BYU. I guess being young student and don’t worry about little things. I remember Steve was running around like crazy getting TD while playing for Cougars & 49ers.
Yes we did only allow usu 14 pts but still too many yards. Too many yards and stupid penalties every games but not too bad against Boise State and usu.
Liberty is good in the redzone. We have to limit Liberty from moving the ball. And we have to be able to score 7 or 8 touchdowns. They aren’t a pushover.
GH: Good comments. I agree, Liberty is no pushover. Romney is a QB. The three man rush was not the perfect solution for defense, but we scored a lot of points because of two good QB’s and our position players did better than in any game since the USC game…
It’s been a long time that we have been this deep at the QB position. We have to hope Romney’s foot heals fast for next week. I wish they would have let Critchlow pass a few times.
OK, I have no gripes about our rush 3, drop 8 in the USU game other then our defense right before the half. BYU would drop too far back and allow Love to run for 1st downs (three I think). I feel more comfortable with a delayed blitz (which I saw from time to time) or LBers hovering close enough to the 1st down marker to stop Love, if that makes sense.
3 pickoffs pretty much shut my mouth about the 3-8 defense. USU had close to 600 yards for the game but got only 14 points out of it, that is a pretty loose bend but don’t break scheme.
To be fair, objectively looking at USU, they did not have their best player, middle Linebacker. Receivers outside of Mariner dropped a lot of balls, USU had a lot of penalties on them calling back 1st downs and touchdowns. They just did just about everything wrong you could do and we capitalized on all of it. The same could be said about BSU having a bad game against BYU, they just did not look very “BSUish”.
As for Liberty. They have 3 players that account for most of their stats. The drop off athlete wise will be obvious. Smallish DBs, big but slow linemen (Liberty is mostly white) but they beat USF. The drop off will be obvious when their starters need a break where as BYU has some pretty good 2nds everywhere. I would be real surprised if Lib could stay within 20 points of BYU.
https://www.masseyratings.com/team.php?t=891&s=308075
You sound like those announcers who kept bringing up the middle linebacker. Enough with that! How about our missing linebackers, DBs, RBs and QBs! My head was about to explode every time that was mentioned and not a word about all the missing parts of our team.
Liberty did beat USF because Liberty can score in the redzone. I hope our players aren’t thinking 20 point win and are preparing properly for Liberty. They don’t just move the ball. They score too.