BYU football: The Cougars’ offense is bad, historically bad

BYU football is fielding one of their worst offenses of the modern football era. And unfortunately for the Cougars, there are no easy fixes available.

1963.

More than 50 years ago.

That’s the last time a BYU football team has had this much trouble scoring points. That year, the Cougars managed to score just 9.1 points per game.

This year: 11.4 points per game.

In the FBS, 128 teams are scoring more than the Cougars. There are also 128 teams gaining more yards per game. There are only 130 teams in the FBS.

That’s bad. That’s really, really bad.

To put it in perspective, the team sitting at 100th in scoring is Pittsburgh. They’re putting up 23.3 points per game, more than double what BYU’s putting on the board.

The Cougars have been equally bad at both passing and rushing the ball. So far, they’ve only managed 87.9 yards per game on the ground (125th) and 154.6 yards each game through the air (118th).

Through seven games this year, BYU football has been held to a touchdown or less three times. By comparison, the Cougars were held to seven points or less only 16 times in 29 years under LaVell Edwards.

Now, by the end of the year all of these numbers will look better. Because the competition gets much lighter in the second half, the Cougars will score more points, gain more yards, and get some wins.

But that doesn’t change the fact that this year’s offense is one of the worst that BYU has fielded since the forward pass became a regular part of football.

No Simple Fixes

The worst part is, there’s no easy way to fix the offense. There’s more than one area causing things to go off the rails.

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Injuries have caused a myriad of problems. The revolving door of quarterbacks haven’t given the offense a chance to establish continuity, and forced Ty Detmer to retool the offense nearly every week.

The Cougars have shot themselves in the foot over and over again. Of BYU’s 82 offensive drives this season, 29 have been cut short either by a turnover or an untimely penalty.

That’s 35 percent of the drives that the Cougars have essentially ended themselves.

In-game adjustments have been ineffective. BYU football keeps things close in the first quarter. In all seven games combined, the Cougars have only been outscored 27-24.

Quarters two through four? They’ve been outscored 164-56.

While a lot of factors may contribute to that, the majority of the responsibility for such a large late-game gap lies with the coaches.

Nothing Overlooked

With so many areas causing the offense to struggle, nothing should be off the table when it comes to making changes. That doesn’t mean that knee-jerk overreactions should dictate what Kalani Sitake does to right the ship, but it does mean that every option should be considered.

Don’t expect anything major to happen during the season. Changing coaches, personnel, or philosophies mid-season is often a recipe for disaster.

Nor does it mean that any huge changes are necessary in the offseason. It may be that the current plans are solid, and that this season is an unfortunate blip in the long-term growth for the Cougars.

But starting now, all of the coaches, personnel, and philosophies need a long, hard look at how they will contribute to that long-term success of BYU football.