BYU football: Grading the Cougars’ performance vs Portland State
By Adam Gibby
Coaching: Overall Grade A-
Offense: A+
I truly believe that the BYU football coaching staff wanted to do enough to win comfortably without exposing too much of their playbook. Watching the game live, I have to say it was the most boring basic play game I have watched ever at the college level. I felt like the play calling was coming out of a middle school playbook. Why did they do this? Two reasons, however both have to do with LSU.
- LSU still has NO idea what to expect from the Cougars. How can you prepare a defense when you only have seven or eight plays to go off of?
- By only winning by 14, the Cougars are not going to get prideful this week. They won by enough to not be discouraged, however not by too much to feel that LSU is very beatable.
Now I could be wrong about all of this. Maybe Ty Detmer’s real offense is seven to 10 of the same plays. However, as a former quarterback himself and after years in the NFL, I find that hard to believe.
Defense: A-
The Cougars called two timeouts in the final minute of the first half. Portland State then converted on third down and suddenly found themselves around the 50-yard line. This left them with plenty of time to try to make something happen. Luckily, nothing came out of it as the defense was able to keep the Vikings from gaining any more yards before the half.
Next: What We Learned From BYU vs Portland State
Outside of that, BYU football ran a very similar style of defense as the offense. It was not flashy or fancy, it was very basic. Once again, it is not giving the LSU coaches anything really to go off of.
Special Teams: B
Overall, the Cougars ran a very conservative game. When it was 4th and five at the 50-yard line, the Cougars punted. When it was 4th and seven at the 25-yard line they kicked a field goal. The only really questionable play was when BYU football called a timeout right before a Rhett Almond field goal attempt.
Why? The Cougars had just 10 men on the field. Sloppy stuff, but that’s not really on the coaches.
With the full squad on the field, Almond promptly missed the kick. Not great.