BYU Football: Final Report Card for the Cougars in 2018
By Shaun Gordon
The 2018 BYU Football season is in the books, so it’s time to take a position-by-position look at how the team performed in their 7-6 year.
That’s a wrap for BYU Football.
With their bowl win last week, the Cougars have finished their season with a 7-6 record. It’s been a rollercoaster ride with some awesome highs (Wisconsin, Western Michigan) and some frustrating lows (Utah State, Utah).
With everything done, let’s take a position-by-position look at how the team and coaches fared, and hand out grades for their performance.
Special Teams
Kicking – B-
Skyler Southam was the definition of average in terms of field goal percentage, hitting 11 of 16 tries (68.8%). Two missed extra point kicks weren’t particularly helpful either.
But Southam is the first Cougar kicker in a while with the leg strength to be a real weapon on offense. He hit every field goal within 40 yards and went 4 of 9 from beyond that. As he hones in those longer kicks he’ll be even better.
Punting – C+
Give credit to Rhett Almond for a decent job of punting after moving over from kicker. He wasn’t great, averaging 40.8 yards per punt, but he got the job done for the most part. A few bad punts came at costly times, though, such as his rough night against Utah.
Freshman Danny Jones will likely take over the role full-time next year, and in his limited opportunities he showed improvement as the season progressed.
Returns- C
The Cougars didn’t move the ball well in either the kicking game or punting game. BYU was just below average in both categories.
They did well at taking care of the ball in the return game though, which keeps this grade from sinking any lower.
Special Teams Coverage – A-
BYU excelled here. The Cougars only allowed 17.3 yards on kickoffs (No. 13 in the nation) and 4.0 yards on punts (No. 16 nationally).
And while field goal defense isn’t completely under the defending team’s control, opponents only hit 7 of their 19 tries in 2018. That’s almost unheard of.