BYU Football (in general, and a review of the New Mexico game)

Alex, roommates, and 64,000 people yelling within 500 feet of me. Now really, does life get any better than this? I suggest that it cannot.

So before I was a BYU student, I was a pretty hardcore BYU football fan. I would get a friend (usually Ashley Hunt) and go to Calvin Branson's house a couple blocks away to eat all his food and watch the game on satellite. On top of that, I will never forget my first game at LaVell Edwards Stadium. I was a freshman, and it was fall of 2004. We played Notre Dame, and it was our season/home opener. I have never seen a place so loud in all my life (and I've been exposed to some playoff 49ers crowds, and don't forget the Mexicans in the outfield pavilion at Dodgers Stadium). My bones tingled of such awesomeness. I think that to this day, a little bit of that crowd tingles in my bones every time I think of BYU football. I get that high every time BYU scores, every time I sing the fight song, every time I see the team play.

With that aside, I think I'm going to start posting my comments on every BYU game here. Since I am 16 rows up every home game, we have a pretty good view. I also have noted that my take on the games is usually different than what most people think. But I am pretty observative.

The first half of the game could be characterized by saying that we were experimenting on offense. Sure, we gave up our first points in a few home games, but I think we learned a lot. I was able to see how our offense works. Usually our receivers will run long routes, long outs, or just streaks. That is why we had so many big plays at the beginning of the season.

The letdown to many Cougar fans at the beginning of the game wasn't that we weren't playing well, but that we were opening up our playbook. We ran our short crosses and our quick slants five times more than I've seen in any other game. As we did this, there was one big drawback: inconsistency. Since we haven't run those plays as frequently, we were more prone to come up short. We weren't having 3rd and 10 plays, we were having 4th and 2 plays. In other words, those plays were coming up just barely short.

There was also one big difference, and now it fits together for me. Dennis Pitta. He's is too fast for linebackers, yet too big for a team's secondary to take on. Dennis was placed as a slot receiver most of the game. He didn't have any great plays, which is a little unexpected. Theoretically, the move to slot receiver puts the defense in a hard position. They either have to sacrifice a linebacker to struggle to keep up with him, and cover him short, or they have to dedicate a safety to him, and risk him getting deeper and getting away. Either way, its a risk for the defense. But honestly, New Mexico did a great job of covering him. They did not, however, manage to realize that while Pitta was at a Slot WR/TE spot, the Cougars were sporting their second TE, Andrew George. And he had two touchdown receptions. And he got the extra blocking up front to get Harvey Unga some rushing yards.

So all in all, I'd say that the New Mexico coaches did their homework very well. They managed to hold us in many aspects. They sacked us once, which was amazing. They really pulled some tricky plays on us, and helped us discover some big holes in our rushing defense.

Hehe... I love it when the opposing team has 4th and 34. And they go for it.