Is there any truth to the "Roderick is limiting his offense" claims?

Following BYU's 27-3 victory over ACC foe Stanford, a growing narrative has emerged from the depths and divided the Cougar fanbase. Aaron Roderick's offense, after flying like a comet against Portland State, seemingly ran low on fuel in a week two bout that saw missed opportunities pile up into a widening heap on viewers' shoulders.

This was exemplified with the Cougars' 4 field goal attempts on the game, two of which came on drives that began near midfield or with less than half of the field to go.

The offensive production, while solid overall, didn't reflect on the scoreboard. A

The Case For Limitation

Questionable play calling, or caution from the coordinator's booth? It's tricky to say just what goes through offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick's head during a football game, because I'm not a medium and I refuse to spark the flame of the dark arts within my heart. But given what we saw on the field, the case that Roderick may be easing his young quarterback into his role does carry a bit of water.

Plenty of QB run options peppered the play-by-play, and Bachmeier's 27 passing attempts were far outweighed by the team's 41 rushes overall.

The run game is working -- it's working very well. LJ Martin has appeared in two games and already has two 100+ yard rushing games. Not too shabby for the junior back; he'll be a load-bearing piece of a balanced Cougar attack all year long.

But a heavy reliance on the ground game does spark some questions about Roderick's confidence in letting Bear let loose. Despite some close calls, BYU's freshman hash-slinger still has yet to toss an interception through his first two games. The accuracy on his long balls leaves a bit to be desired, but there's no denying his efficacy in the passing game has been impressive in early returns.

But Bear is still a freshman, and opposing teams are going to throw everything they have at a player without experience. Bewildering blitz packages, bizarre coverage, and everything in between to tilt Bachmeier's headspace in a way that compromises the structure of his offense. Knowing this, it's not surprising to see so many handoffs, so many screen plays, and very few long throws through the air.

In blowout games, a team will always call conservative with time as their ally, but that doesn't entirely explain why the Cougars failed to punch the ball into the endzone against a clearly overmatched Stanford team.

The Case Against

If you take a look at the numbers, you'll find that BYU's offensive production was actually pretty solid. 332 yards of offense could be largely attributed to shortened distances. Short fields courtesy of the defense brought the team to the doorstep of the goal line pretty frequently, and two touchdowns were erased by head-scratching officiating, including an LJ Martin pile-push that was spotted incorrectly before foregoing any review, and a phantom hold as Parker Kingston jogged into the endzone.

Regarding Martin's erased score, Roderick is still expressing his disbelief over the officiating to the present day.

You can be the judge yourself: are these official calls the right decision, or did they artificially delete points off BYU's half of the scoreboard?

Let's imagine for a minute and say these two scores had counted. If the multiverse theory is to be believed, there is a universe in which the Cougs swapped two field goals for touchdowns. Then again, if that's the case, then last year's team breached the CFP and won the national championship, right? But what about the universe where the multiverse theory isn't true? I'm getting dizzy. What was I talking about?

Oh yeah, I'm writing an article.

If the officiating goes BYU's way, does the narrative change? Instead of 27-3, BYU wins this game by a score of 35-3. Is that enough to keep the doubters silent, or does that worry persist?

It's impossible to dive into Roderick's mind, but the question still has me wondering. Have we seen the fully unleashed BYU offense, or is this team biding its time for tougher competition?

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