BYU Football: Offensive balance and two more keys to beating UMass

BYU Football is traveling more than 2,000 miles to get their revenge against UMass for last year’s Senior Day loss. Three things will help them do just that.

Just bringing up the name UMass sends shudders down a BYU Football fan’s spine. After all, Senior Day last year was one of the lowest points in the program’s history, at least since LaVell Edwards took over as head coach.

The Minutemen came into Provo and outplayed the listless Cougars. BYU played decently on defense, but the offense was completely anemic.

Fast forward nearly a full year and the story is almost completely the same. The only difference is that BYU has to travel more than 2,000 miles to get their revenge over UMass. And like last year’s game, the Cougars will be bringing along a good defense and an offense that struggles to figure out where the end zone is.

BYU will be the more talented team when they face UMass, but they were last year as well. If the Cougars don’t show up with some fight right off the bat they’ll put their bowl aspirations on life support.

Here are three things the Cougars have to do to avenge last year’s loss:

1 – Offensive Balance

With the exception of Hawaii and their lack of defense, the last time BYU put together a game that came anywhere near resembling a balanced offense was the Wisconsin upset. Since then we’ve seen:

• No passing game against McNeese State
• No run game against Washington
• No run game against Utah State
• No run game against Northern Illinois
• No run game early against Boise State

Last week’s loss was a step in the right direction for the Cougar offense. For the first time, offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes was willing to throw the ball frequently in the first half, which opened up the run game in the second.

Now BYU has to build on that. The Cougars should look to use the same blueprint against the Minutemen. If BYU can pass for more than 250 yards and run for more than 150 they’ll win this game going away.