BYU football: Cougars fall to ECU, there needs to be a change

BYU football lost to East Carolina on Saturday night, looking thoroughly outmatched by the Pirates. Now, there has to be a change.

I had hope for BYU football. Truly, I thought the Cougars had a chance to pull out a win. To look like a team that wasn’t totally dysfunctional.

I was wrong. So wrong.

Instead of getting a win, the Cougars fell 33-17.

We could sit here and discuss ECU’s schedule – how the Pirates have played a lot of ranked teams, so maybe they were better than we thought.

But the problem runs deeper than that. BYU football is broken.

The offense is terrible, and the defense isn’t far behind. The Cougars struggled to score just 10 points in the first half, then were held scoreless for the third quarter and most of the fourth.

Defensively, the Pirates completed any pass they wanted. BYU did a decent job of stopping the run, but the passing defense is too soft. Kalani Sitake and Ilaisa Tuiaki want to use a four-man front, but they can’t generate pressure.

So opposing quarterbacks have all day to throw, and tend to find (wide) open receivers.

Offensively, we’re still talking about the same things we were in August.

Receivers don’t get open consistently. Sometimes – like against ECU – there are receivers that appear to be running the wrong routes.

Tanner Mangum had BYU football fans claiming he’d be in the NFL next year. Now, he has fans asking about Beau Hoge’s health.

The Cougars’ best offensive weapon – Ula Tolutau – often can’t be used in the second half because the team is trailing and needs to throw.

Next: Coaches On The Hot Seat?

There are a lot of layers to get through. Everything seems to be falling apart. The talent isn’t there, the coaching has been bad, and this is the most inept Cougar squad since the Johnson administration.

I think that, at this point, there needs to be a change. When you’re playing a 1-6 team you expect to be in that game. Not outclassed and outplayed in every facet.

If this were any other school in the nation, changes would be made. Remember when Texas was embarrassed by BYU football in Provo? The Longhorns fired their defensive coordinator the next day.

The trouble, of course, is that BYU doesn’t have the same money at its disposal. It’s tough to rally donors for everything, especially when you’re 1-7.

But you have to do something. The “give it time argument” only works so long as you’re not absolutely terrible. The longer you’re awful, the quicker you burn up your time. And now, it looks like the time is up.

If it were up to me, I’d be making some serious changes. If not now, then during the offseason. I think you don’t really have an option. By keeping with the status quo, you’re admitting that you don’t really care how good (or bad) the football team is.

Maybe getting back to LaVell Edwards Stadium and taking on San Jose State will get the mojo going. But then again, it doesn’t really look like anything is going to get any better. The bowl streak is dead, and the Cougars have three of their final five games on the road.

So there’s a very real chance that it gets uglier.

I suppose the good news is that next season will probably be an improvement. It’d be hard to be much worse.