BYU Football: Kalani Sitake wants explosive play, now he has to let it happen

Kalani Sitake wants more offensive explosiveness and defensive disruption out of BYU Football. Now it’s up to the coaching staff to allow it to happen.

BYU Football’s offense celebrated Halloween on Saturday, dressing up as a lifeless entity.

The offense stalled drive after drive, never sniffing the end zone in the Cougars’ 7-6 loss to Northern Illinois.

Six points at home is pretty miserable, especially coming off a bye week. And BYU head coach Kalani Sitake is the first to admit that. He did so in Monday’s weekly press conference, then proceeded to say that he wants to see “more explosive plays on offense and more defensive disruption.”

Well, duh.

Over the past season and a half, BYU’s offense has seldom come up with big plays, and the defense has struggled to pressure the quarterback and force turnovers.

Now the defense can’t be blamed for Saturday’s loss. They played well and held the Huskies to one score, but they didn’t do it through disruption. The Cougars forced zero turnovers, and only had two sacks and six tackles for loss.

The offense was the problem, only gaining 301 total yards and converting three out of fifteen third downs.

And then there’s that part where they couldn’t find the end zone.

Signs Point to Coaching

Sitake is right, BYU needs more explosiveness and disruption. There’s only one problem with that:

The lack of explosiveness and disruption falls squarely on the coaching staff.

Offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes wants to create a power running game at BYU, but the Cougar offensive line and running backs aren’t good enough to dominate on the ground against good rush defenses.

Just look at the Washington game. And the Utah State one. And Northern Illinois.

In Saturday’s game BYU averaged just 2.51 yards per carry. That’s abysmal. On the flip side they averaged 6.8 yards per pass and 11.56 yards per completion. Still not ideal numbers, but a whole lot better than what they were getting on the ground.

Yet the Cougars ran the ball 37 times and only passed it 30 times. That’s crazy when looking at the difference in production between the two.

If you simply flip those two numbers and assume the same production, BYU would have gained an extra 26 yards. That may not seem like a lot, but chances are good that those extra 25 yards would have resulted in extra points somewhere.

Here’s an even more glaring stat. BYU ran 53 plays on either first or second down. Of those 53, the Cougars only attempted a pass of eight or more yards 13 times, and they were either successful or drew a penalty on 10 of those 13. Yet after seven of those 10 successful plays the Cougars went right back to the run game on the next play.

In other words, passing the ball down the field was working, yet the Cougars kept going away from what worked.

That’s not 100% on the coaches, since eight of those first and second down plays resulted in a Zach Wilson sack or run. In all likelihood at least some of those were intended to be down-the-field plays.

But the offensive staff’s insistence on the short game consistently led to third-and-medium or third-and-long situations, and Northern Illinois could key in on the passing game at that point.

Bringing Back the Aggressive

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If the coaching staff wants more explosive plays, they’ve got to call more explosive plays.

The same can be said of the defense.

While the defense has played well, they’ve been far from disruptive. The front four is getting little backfield pressure on their own, and the word “blitz” seems like a foreign concept in the Cougar locker room.

While the defense isn’t in the dire straights that the offense is, the lack of disruption on that side of the ball still points back to defensive coordinator Ilaisa Tuiaki and the playcalling.

The coaching staff wasn’t afraid to be aggressive early in the season. Yet as the season has worn on the playcalling has become more and more conservative. That’s a trend that has to change.

Sitake is right. This team lacks explosiveness and disruption. That’s plenty evident. Now it’s up to him and his staff to open things up for those things to happen.

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