Bye bye perfect season. Let's see if PFF can tell us what went wrong.
Just How Bad were BYU's Offensive and Defensive Lines?
Based on the eye test we know the offensive line wasn't good. (Remember the blocking that led to Allgeier's 4-yard loss on a must have third-and-1?)
Based on the simple stats we know the defensive line wasn't good. (Remember the 281 yards rushing for Coastal?)
So what do the advanced stats tell us? More of the same I'm afraid. Let's start with the offensive line. Through the first 9 games of the season Zach faced pressure on only 49 of his dropbacks, or in other words the offensive line was allowing pressure only about 5 times per game. Coastal pressured Zach 11 times last Saturday.
Let's put it another way. Through the first 9 games of the season Zach was pressured on 49 of 257 dropbacks, meaning he faced pressure 19% of the time when he was passing. Against Coastal that same ratio (pressure on 11 of 36 dropbacks) reveals Zach was under pressure on 31% of his passing attempts. That's worse than the 29% pressure rate Utah, USC, and Washington combined to average against BYU in 2019.
Let's put it another way. This was the most pressure BYU allowed all season.
It's not a surprise Zach struggled against that pressure - all QBs look significantly worse when defensive ends are blowing up their plans (remember the Super Bowl with the Giants versus the undefeated Patriots?)
The defensive line ... yikes man. On 52 rushing attempts11. ESPN's box score shows 54 carries; PFF removes the sacks. Coastal won 40 of the battles (wins are the opposite of stops, defined here - basically if the rush gains significant yardage on 1st or 2nd down, or converts on 3rd down or at the goal line it's a win for the offense). BYU only won 12 out of Coastal's 52 rushes. Also keep in mind one of BYU's wins came when they 'held' Coastal to an 8 yard run on a 3rd and long and another came on an unforced Coastal fumble. In reality BYU stopped Coastal running plays only 10 times.
So how did our offensive line, rated 2nd in the country by PFF just days before, go to shambles? Why did our defensive line look like they'd never defended the option before? I have a theory.
Was BYU Just Tired?
Stick with me for a few on this one. BYU's had a season filled with blowouts and there are two obvious benefits to blowing out opponents. One, you can pull your starters which protects their health, and two, you can play your subs more which increases your depth. But there's one potential downside if nearly every game is a blowout and your starters are only playing two to three quarters a game; they might not be conditioned to giving a full four quarters of effort when needed.
Think about the last month in particular for BYU. Between the high-water mark of the season -- crushing Boise State on November 6th -- and the game against Coastal on December 5th, BYU played a single game and it was a scrimmage against FCS foe North Alabama. Most of our starters played only about 60% of the available snaps in that contest. Before the Boise game BYU beat up Western Kentucky and Texas State, not exactly a who's who of competition that demanded much from our starters. You have to go all the way back to October 16th to find the last (and only) time BYU was challenged this whole season.
So let's say BYU's starters have played 70% of the snaps they would have in a normal season due to the high number of blowouts. Of those reduced snaps, probably only two-thirds were played at what you might call a "desperate" or "high-energy" level because when you're up by 25 you're not going to empty the tank like you would when you're trying to claw back from 7 down.
Now consider that the week before the Coastal game was Thanksgiving, and a rare Thanksgiving without a game scheduled and ... well I think it's reasonable to assume some players may have gone a bit deep on the Thanksgiving feast. I don't blame anyone who may have packed on some holiday pounds. Why not? You'll probably never have the holiday off during your BYU career again. Plus you thought you had two weeks to recover before the SDSU game.
Add it all together and it seems impossible that BYU would be anything but sluggish versus Coastal. BYU's starters hadn't played a challenging game since October 16th against Houston. They hadn't played a meaningful game since November 6th against Boise. They enjoyed Thanksgiving while Coastal was preparing for Texas State and Liberty, their biggest matchup of the season. And for the cherry on top BYU had to fly cross-country to the east coast and play harder and longer than they had in any other game all season. I mean, if it were me I'd be out of sync at best, out of shape at worst.
Now I don't know for certain if BYU's guys were tired, but if they were, wow did the coaches make things harder on themselves by choosing to rotate less than ever.
Khyiris Tonga is the big example here. He averaged 37 snaps per game this season. In the Coastal game he played 65! That was his career high in snaps played! Prior to Coastal he'd only crossed the 50 snap barrier four times in his whole career. It's likely our rock in the middle was low on juice during this game.
It wasn't just Tonga. El-Bakri averaged 39 snaps per game this season. He played 64 against Coastal. It was also his career high.
Our linebackers Pili, Wilgar, and Kaufusi averaged 45 to 46 snaps per game. They played 64, 63, and 63 against Coastal (for Pili and Wilgar, this tied season highs). Zach Dawe averaged 43 snaps per game; he played 65 against Coastal. Zayne Anderson played 36 total snaps between October 31st and December 4th. He played 71 against Coastal.
I'm not here to blame the guys. It's not reasonable to take a 4-week stretch featuring Boise, bye week, Northern Alabama, and then a holiday bye week as seriously as you'd take a 4-week stretch featuring Utah, Tennessee, USC, and Washington. You simply can't be as game ready for the former as you are for the latter. If our guys were in fact out of sync or shape I blame it on circumstance, not on a lack of player diligence.
PS - This is a tricky balance beam to negotiate. If BYU rotated more guys during the Coastal game we'd complain that coaches weren't relying on their stars enough. If BYU played their starters more during blowouts to keep their conditioning up we'd complain that they weren't giving reps to the bench players. Coaching is tough.
PSS - Jeff Hornaceck once said the reason Jazz lost to the Bulls in the '98 Finals was because the Jazz swept the Lakers and had 9 days off before playing the Bulls. The Jazz were firing on all cylinders and then they didn't have to perform for an extended period of time and it knocked them out of their groove. Seems like the same thing may have happened to BYU. The Cougs were rolling as of the Boise State game and then basically took a month off.
What happened to our Short Game?
In the passing game, the easiest completions are those that happen at or behind the line of scrimmage. They're like free throws; they're easy, they put players in rhythm, they can kickstart someone who's struggling, and they advance your offense. We're talking about dump-offs to running backs in the flat, shovel passes, the screen game, etc.
BYU under Grimes has been awesome at taking advantage of these freebies (about 14% of BYU's passes under Grimes come at or behind the line of scrimmage, while over Anae's last two years and Detmer's two years those throws accounted for only about 9% of BYU's passes).
Prior to the Coastal game BYU was averaging just over 4 completions for about 36 yards per game on these types of throws. But something happened in the Coastal game - either BYU stepped away from the short game, or Coastal eliminated it with their defense. BYU completed only one short pass and it went for a measly three yards. In a game decided by the thinnest of margins, a few extra yards from the easy throws may have been just what we needed.
One other factor - PFF lists both Katoa and Allgeier as each dropping one freebie. Add those drops to Romney's drop on the infamous 4th-and-1 and you find that over a fifth of BYU's drops for the entire season (3 of 14) came in the one game where we needed to have our surest hands.
What happened to our Deep Game?
Prior to the Coastal contest Zach was averaging 3 deep passes for 122 yards per game (deep pass = pass that travels 20+ yards down the field). Against Coastal Zach was held to 1 completion on 4 attempts for 33 yards (5 attempts if you count the hail mary at the end of the half). What gives?
Without having access to the magical all-22 tape, it's hard to know how BYU fared against Coastal's defensive backs. But PFF gives us one stat that may indicate BYU's receivers were challenged more than they were in other games. For the season, Zach passed the ball on average 2.69 seconds after the snap. In the Coastal game Zach held on to the ball significantly longer (3.04 seconds), suggesting our guys weren't getting open as quickly or easily as during the rest of the season.
When Avoiding Tackles Isn't Good
Chris Jackson tied for the team high against Coastal with three avoided tackles. Great! Unfortunately those three misses led to a 16-yard loss. At least we'll always have this incredible box score to look back on.
Three Non-Statistical Rambling Thoughts
A few parting thoughts for those who have made it this far.
1. Maybe blowouts don't tell us as much as we think they do.
Between BYU this year and Utah last year, we've seen two teams that everyone believed were special because they consistently annihilated ho-hum opponents. Then at the end of the year, facing decent teams for perhaps the first time, we saw that both 2019 Utah and 2020 BYU weren't what everyone thought they were. It reminds me of the 2008-2009 Utah Jazz who were predicted to be a playoff darkhorse because they had the third best point differential in the league. (They were swept in the 2nd round lol)
Blowouts are good, and they certainly prove your team is capable, but maybe they aren't a guarantee of excellence like I often think. The next time BYU is blowing someone out I'll remind myself that blowouts can come because opponents quit early, or because opponents have injuries or Covid absences, or because it's a bad matchup, or because the game state flipped out of control and the trailing team got desperate and abandoned their plans.
2. Where was the chip on the shoulder?
So many things disappointed me on Saturday, but what hurt me the worst is that BYU should have been playing with a huge chip on their shoulder. I don't need to rehash how we all felt about the national media taking a dump on BYU over the Washington debacle. Between the trash talk and the playoff ranking I thought the next team BYU played was going to get their throat slit. Instead BYU came out and played like a team that had taken a month off.
All of which is to say I was pretty excited when Zach got roughed up at halftime. Surely this would raise some adrenaline levels! Surely this would fire up the players. Nope. Instead we kept getting punked. It reminded me of the 2011 BYU-Utah game when I thought BYU would play on fire after getting jobbed out of a win the year before (the "knee was down" debacle) and after having to watch their rival get promoted to a P5 conference. Instead of playing with a chip we fumbled 200 times. It's been nine years and I still don't understand how that happened.
3. Congratulations on traveling 2,200 miles to surrender.
I thought Kalani had learned this lesson. Back in 2018 BYU had a chance to end the losing streak against Utah. Zach Wilson had played a superb game as a true freshman on the road in his first rivalry contest. With three minutes left BYU was down 28 to 27 and faced a 4th-and-1. Instead of giving his QB a chance to make a play, BYU gave the ball to Riley Burt, a running back who was so far down the depth chart that he was behind a guy who converted mid-season from linebacker to running back.
Instead of putting the ball in the hands of their talented QB, they put it in the hands of a player who had 8 carries against Utah for 12 yards. 5 of his carries had gone for 2 yards or less. You might be shocked to hear this, but the handoff failed and the game was lost.
At the time I took this very hard, as seen in this overly dramatic post I wrote in the aftermath. But my overall reasoning was sound. If Zach Wilson is special, why are we taking the ball out of his hands?
When BYU faced 4th-and-5 against Coastal I was positive Kalani knew what to do. Kalani's going to keep his guys on the field because he has the best player on the field. He has Zach Wilson. He has the Heisman Trophy candidate. He has probably the best quarterback he'll ever coach during his BYU head coaching career. He has a receiver in Dax Milne who has proven as reliable as anyone since Cody Hoffman. Kalani knows the odds of gaining 5 yards with his superstar quarterback are far better than punting the ball and having his defense -- which has been ground into dust all day long -- get it back for him with any reasonable amount of time remaining.
My jaw dropped when BYU sent out the punting team. I don't know who this tweeter is, but he speaks the truth.
Flew 2,200 miles to be a pussy.
— Brandon Walker (@BWalkerSEC) December 6, 2020
This was the exact mistake as the 4th-and-1 call against Utah. Somehow, someway, our head coach trusted someone he had no reason to trust (a defense which had given up over 250 yards rushing) more than his soon-to-be-first-round-pick quarterback. What will it take for a QB to gain Kalani's confidence? If Zach hasn't earned it no one will.
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