BYU Football: What we learned from the blowout bowl win

BYU Football ended the season in dominant fashion, using an explosive second-half offense to take down Western Michigan in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

Perfection.

BYU Football used a perfect game from a freshman to key a huge second-half offensive explosion in their 49-18 win over Western Michigan in the Famous Idaho Potato bowl.

With the win, the Cougars finish at 7-6, which feels a lot different from 6-7. And the fact that they did it in dominant fashion makes it that much sweeter.

Here’s what we learned from the season-ending win:

Injury Bug

The Cougars were missing a lot of players on Friday. They played without their top three rushers (Squally Canada, Lopini Katoa, and Matt Hadley). Two Kaufusis were out (Corbin and Isaiah). And there was no Butch Pau’u, among others.

Rushing Woes

And BYU running game looked like they were without their top three rushers. The Cougars only managed to gain 20 yards on the ground before halftime, and 19 of those came from Zach Wilson.

But when BYU started airing it out it opened up more running lanes, allowing the Cougars to finish the game with 132 rushing yards total.

Costly Mistakes

Every stalled drive by BYU in the first half was due in part to a costly mistake by the Cougars.

A blown assignment leading to a sack.
A holding penalty.
A fumble.
A false start.

But aside from two Roughing the Kicker penalties, the Cougars cleaned up those mistakes, and the results were drastic. BYU scored a touchdown on six consecutive drives to blow the game open.

Zach Wilson

If you look up “perfection” in the dictionary it will include Zach Wilson’s stat line from Friday’s game. The freshman finished the game 18-18 for 317 yards and four touchdowns. That’s a pass efficiency rating of 321.3.

He set a bowl record and two BYU records with his performance:

Best completion percentage in BYU history (100%)
Best completion percentage in Famous Idaho Potato Bowl history (100%)
Most consecutive completions in BYU history (18)

Takitaki with the Tackle-Tackles

Sione Takitaki saved one of his best games for last. The senior led all players by a wide margin with 19 tackles, including a tackle for loss and a sack.

Those 19 tackles came up one short of tying the bowl record, and it’s tied for fourth most in a single game in BYU history.

With all of the injuries and position changes on defense for the bowl game, his big game was much-needed.

Nickel-and-Dime

For the most part, Western Michigan was willing to take what the Cougar defense gave them, going underneath and gaining small chunks of yardage.

And it was successful in the first half, as the Cougars got almost no pressure on the quarterback and their soft defense underneath allowed 3-5 yards per play consistently.

The second half was completely different. BYU finally got pressure in the backfield, including three sacks, and took away those easy underneath plays.

What it Means

BYU finishes 2018 with a winning record. Instead of entering 2019 needing to snap a two-season losing streak, they’ll be looking to establish a two-season winning streak.

A lot of young players saw the field this season, and even more saw time in the bowl game. That experience will be invaluable next year, especially with the brutal schedule to start 2019.

More than anything, a season-ending win, especially in blowout fashion, puts a bow on a turnaround season.

Was it a drastic turnaround? Not exactly.

But the program looks like it’s turned a corner, now they’ve got to build on that in 2019.