BYU Football: Takeaways from the win over McNeese State

It may not have been a pretty win, but BYU Football beat FCS foe McNeese State in a game that was more competitive than the final score shows.

There’s the old adage that a win is a win.

BYU Football picked up their third win of the season, taking down FCS opponent McNeese State in front of the home crowd on Saturday 30-3, but it wasn’t pretty.

The Cougars were far from sharp in the win, with mental mistakes, dropped passes, and turnovers. Fortunately, they’re a better team than McNeese State, so they were able to win despite the sloppiness.

That won’t happen next week, when BYU travels to take on another Top 10 team in Washington. The Cougars will have to play a much cleaner game in order to have a shot at a second major upset.

Here are some thoughts on the win:

Slow Starts

BYU has fallen into a pattern of starting slowly on both sides of the ball. Cougar opponents have scored first in the last three games, and BYU has been outscored 14-7 in all four first quarters combined.

The offense looked anemic in the first quarter and made costly mistakes, and the defense didn’t look sharp either early on.

Tricked Out

BYU’s first trick play of the year was a huge success against Wisconsin, with a double-pass for the touchdown.

Their second one didn’t go quite as well. The Cougars attempted a double-reverse on their first drive, and Micah Simon couldn’t hang onto the pitch. He fumbled it, then recovered it himself for a 12-yard loss.

Had he hung onto it he would have had a whole lot of running room.

The Passing Problem

To say that BYU still doesn’t have much of a passing game would be an understatement. Tanner Mangum completed a respectable 15 of 25 passes, but for only 118 yards. That’s 4.7 yards per attempt.

The Cougars are doing barely enough in the passing game to survive, but that’s not going to be enough with games like Washington, Utah State, and Boise State coming up.

More Drops

The passing game woes can’t all be put on Tanner Mangum’s shoulders. His receivers let him down far too often. It happened in two key instances against McNeese State.

Gunner Romney dropped a long pass on the first offensive play of the game, and Squally Canada dropped a touchdown throw on the first drive of the second half. The Cougars had to settle for a field goal on that drive.

Taking Advantage of Mistakes

BYU made their fair share of mistakes in the game, such as Squally Canada’s fumble and Micah Simon’s muffed punt. But McNeese State failed to capitalize on BYU’s blunders.

On the flip side, the Cowboys made even more mistakes and the Cougars capitalized. BYU scored on five straight possessions, and their first four scores came after:

Bronson Kaufusi blocked a McNeese State field goal.
Tanner Jacobson picked off Cowboys’ quarterback Cody Orgeron.
A McNeese State holding penalty negated their recovery of Michael Shelton’s muffed punt.
Michael Shelton forced a fumble, recovered by Sawyer Powell.

Four huge mistakes by the Cowboys, four scores for the Cougars. That series of events completely changed the complexion of the game.

Hello Katoa

Redshirt freshman Lopini Katoa got his first rushing touchdown as a Cougar.

Then he got another.

He’s taken a backseat to Squally Canada so far this season, but he’s proving that (a) he’ll be more than capable in picking up the load if Canada gets hurt, and (b) he’ll be a bright spot on this offense for the next 3+ years.

Hello Wilson

Backup quarterback Zach Wilson took the field for the first time. The freshman threw two passes, completing one. He’ll throw a lot more passes on that field in his Cougar career.

Lack of Conversion

While BYU was a respectable 7-16 on third down conversions, the Cougars held the Cowboys without a single third down conversion.

Yes, you heard that right. McNeese State went 0-10 on third down. That’s almost unheard of.

Rule Book Madness

We learned two important things in this game:

There needs to be a penalty for calling a time out when you don’t have one.
Nuclear engineering is easier to understand than college football’s targeting rule.

Mascot Oops

Cosmo lost his head during the game…literally:

Oh no ... 😰 (via @KatrinaMarsden2) pic.twitter.com/3kH50O2HuR
— ESPN (@espn) September 23, 2018

Not sure what’s more impressive, the speed at which they rushed his head to him, or the lengths he went to protect his identity…