Impressions on BYU Football’s blowout of Hawaii

BYU Football grounded Hawaii’s vaunted aerial attack, taking down the Rainbow Warriors in freshman quarterback Zach Wilson’s first start.

BYU Football dominated a team they were better than.

That may sound like a given, but it’s been a while since that happened.

The Cougars’ 49-23 win was the most complete game that BYU has played in more than a month, and they looked good from start to finish.

With the win, BYU also equals their win total from last year, and they did it in six fewer games.

The game also marked the beginning of the Zach Wilson era. The freshman quarterback looked good in his first game, albeit against one of the worst defenses the Cougars will play all year.

Here’s some quick impressions on the win:

The Spark

Did Wilson do better against Hawaii than Tanner Mangum would have? Who knows. But the change in quarterback sparked the offense, and players made plays that they didn’t with Mangum at the helm.

Let’s not let the Wilson hype train get too out of hand though. He did what he did against a sub-par defense, but that’s also why this was the perfect time to make a change. It allows Wilson to ease into the starting role with two easy games and a bye week before his first big challenge at Boise State.

Freshman Miscues

With a freshman quarterback comes freshman mistakes. Wilson was baited perfectly by the defense into throwing his interception, and those are the kind of errors that will come with inexperience.

He didn’t make that mistake through panic or indecisiveness, though. Those are the kind of mistakes that make you worry.

Balance

Call off the search. The run game has finally been found.

Of course the underwhelming Hawaii defense certainly played a part in BYU’s run dominance, but it was good to see some balance for the first time in a while.

The Cougars finished with 280 rushing yards and 196 passing yards. And considering BYU rushed the ball nearly twice as much as they passed it, that’s about as balanced as an offense can possibly get.

In our keys to the game, we predicted that BYU needed at least 150 rushing yards to win the game. They surpassed that mark by just a little bit.

Now if they only they can find that balance against better defenses…

Mixed Bag at O-Line

The offensive line did much better at opening running lanes for the backs than they have in the past few weeks. Their pass protection was only so-so though. They allowed the Rainbow Warriors to get pressure on Wilson much too often.

Under Pressure

On the flip side, BYU finally got pressure in the backfield. The Cougar defense got four sacks, nearly doubling their season total, and made Hawaii quarterback Cole McDonald uncomfortable all night.

And surprisingly, they did it without having to blitz very often. But they did blitz at key times, which we haven’t seen from defensive coordinator Ilaisa Tuiaki very often this season.

The Dayan Effect

Dayan Ghanwoloku may be the most important defensive player for BYU. Somehow, when he’s on the field the Cougars look completely different (in a good way) in pass defense.

While his absence is far from the only reason that BYU’s pass defense looked horrendous against Washington and Utah State, it looks like his presence is much more important than we thought.

Conservative Calling

In the second half, BYU played it conservatively on both sides of the ball. It makes sense, since they had a big lead and wanted to drain the clock.

On offense they ran the ball 29 times and only threw seven passes, and on defense they allowed Hawaii to get short gains while keeping them from making big plays.

The coaching staff was willing to give up the 20 second half points as long as the Rainbow Warriors took plenty of time to do it.

Final TD

BYU’s final touchdown came on a fourth and six well within field goal range and the game already in hand. So why did Kalani Sitake elect to go for it?

Probably because Hawaii coach Nick Rolovich continued to call timeouts. That play was Sitake’s way of saying, “Well, if you’re going to keep fighting we will too.”

Good on him for doing it if that was the reason.