BYU Football: The stat we keep overlooking from 2020
By Adam Gibby
As the 2020 season moves further in rear view mirror, BYU Football is given less and less credit to what they did.
As college football previews are coming it is becoming a constant site to read something similar to the following:
“There is no doubt that BYU had a great season in 2020, but when looking at their schedule it turns out that the Cougars didn’t play anyone. Most P5 schools would have run the table with that schedule. The Cougars are improved from a few years ago, but they still won’t win a lot of their P5 games.”
While that quote wasn’t a direct quote from one source, it is a combination of just about every major news outlet reporting on BYU’s upcoming season.
Something that isn’t looked over is the margin of victory. Here is the complete list of all the games to remind you how dominant the Cougars were. Keep in mind, the Cougars took their foot off the pedal in the second half for many of these games.
- Navy 55-3
- Troy 48-7
- Lousiana Tech 45-14
- UTSA 27-20
- Houston 43-26
- Texas State 52-14
- Western Kentucky 41-10
- Boise State 51-17
- North Alabama 66-14
- Coastal Carolina 17-22
- San Diego State 28-14
- UCF 49-23
Yes, out of the 65 P5 schools 15 of them would have likely gone 11-1, but would they have outscored their opponents 522-184 or an average scoring margin of 44-15? Those scores are total domination and there aren’t five schools in the P5 or G5 that would have put up that scoring margin last year.
It’s time we remember BYU Football’s winning margin from last year and use it as a strength of this team. Yes, the schedule was weak, but it wasn’t like BYU was just getting by against the teams on their schedule. BYU lost a lot of talent, but they bring back a lot as well, and with how much they dominated in 2020 against a weak schedule, they should still do well against better P5 teams in 2021.
Honestly, how many P5 teams would beat Boise State by 34 points and UCF by 26 points?
I’ll wait.