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BYU Football: Cougars have been spotty after bye weeks in recent years

By Shaun Gordon

PROVO, UT - NOVEMBER 12: Head coach Kalani Sitake of the Brigham Young Cougars greets kicker Rhett Almond #26 after his 20 yard field goal in the fourth quarter against the Southern Utah Thunderbirds at LaVell Edwards Stadium on November 12, 2016 in Provo Utah. The Brigham Young Cougars beat the Southern Utah Thunderbirds 37-7. (Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images)
PROVO, UT - NOVEMBER 12: Head coach Kalani Sitake of the Brigham Young Cougars greets kicker Rhett Almond #26 after his 20 yard field goal in the fourth quarter against the Southern Utah Thunderbirds at LaVell Edwards Stadium on November 12, 2016 in Provo Utah. The Brigham Young Cougars beat the Southern Utah Thunderbirds 37-7. (Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images) /
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BYU Football has historically been good in games right after a bye week. They haven’t been so good recently, and this coaching staff needs to change that.

Conventional wisdom states that a college football team should have an advantage after a bye week. They’re rested, healthier, and have extra time to scout and prepare for their upcoming opponent.

The data shows that that’s true, but only slightly. Teams don’t have nearly the spike in win percentage that you’d expect in games immediately following a bye week.

But that hasn’t been the case for BYU Football historically. They’ve been very good off of a bye week. From 1997-2012 the Cougars went 12-3 in regular season games immediately following a bye week.

And yes, that math is right. BYU didn’t have a bye week in 1998. Before the turn of the millennium teams didn’t have a bye week year in and year out like they do now. In fact, in 1999 the Cougars’ bye week came in Week 1.

Not much of an advantage in a bye week like that.

Recent Regression

But the paradigm has shifted for the Cougars in recent years. Over the past five seasons BYU has matched their post-bye week loss total from the previous 17 seasons, going 3-3 in those games (BYU had two byes in 2014):

  • 2013 – BYU lost to Utah 20-13
  • 2014 – BYU lost to Utah State 35-20
  • 2014 – BYU beat UNLV 42-23
  • 2015 – BYU beat San Jose State 17-16
  • 2016 – BYU bean Cincinnati 20-3
  • 2017 – BYU lost to UMass 16-10

So what’s caused the loss of advantage recently?

It can’t be traced to coaching, since Kalani Sitake is 1-1 in his tenure so far, and before 2013 Bronco Mendenhall was dominant coming off a bye week.

If you break down each individual loss things start to make a little more sense. The Utah game is the Utah game, and it’ll be close no matter whether it’s after a bye week or not. Plus there’s an annoying win streak going on right now.

Taysom Hill went down with (another) injury in the 2014 loss to Utah State, and the Cougars didn’t look the same after he went out.

2017 was 2017. Most die-hard Cougar fans have tried to forget that last season even existed, and that UMass loss was the lowest of the low.

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Righting the Ship

Saturday’s game against Northern Illinois is a big one for Sitake. One criticism of BYU’s coaching staff under Sitake is their inability to make meaningful in-game adjustments, especially on defense.

If the Cougars can’t start capitalizing when they have extra time to prepare, the idea that they don’t scheme well and adjust well will grow. With a coaching staff that’s trying to prove they’re rebuilding the program and have the right tools to do it, winning games off of a bye week is crucial.

Northern Illinois is a tough team, especially defensively. BYU is trotting out a freshman quarterback for just the second start of his career.

They’ve had an extra week to prepare for these things, though, and it’s time for the coaches and the team to prove that the extra preparation wasn’t in vain.

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