I'm generally more of a "drop-8" defender than criticizer. I know one person who played quarterback in college. When I asked him if he preferred to face a blitz or face 8 guys dropping in coverage, he said he would always rather see the blitz. So that's one data point. The second is BYU often finds themselves in big games where they are outmatched athletically. I think it's reasonable to lean conservative in those scenarios with hopes of keeping things close.
What I'm trying to say is I'm not an automatic drop-8 hater.
But context matters. BYU was not at an athletic disadvantage against Liberty. They could take risks at the line of scrimmage and recover in the secondary. Plus they were coming off a game where their defense was heavily exposed, their confidence was shaken, and they could use a morale boost. Plus they were facing a quarterback who had not had success in his career. Prior to the BYU game Jonathan Bennett had completed 66 of 136 passes. That's 49%. Against the blitz the guy was even worse, converting 44% of this throws. Under pressure he was even worse converting 24% of his passes.
Armed with this information BYU proceeded to blitz Bennett only 3 times on 35 dropbacks. I don't know much, but man that seems like a stupid approach. And Liberty was prepared for that approach because ...
Predictability is the worst ability
For his career Bennett takes a pretty fair amount of deep shots -- 27% of his career passes have been thrown 20 yards or more downfield. But facing BYU's drop-8 his coaches clearly told him to keep things conservative because he went deep only twice on 27 attempts (i.e., 7% of his throws). That means for this one game he radically altered his historic approach, changing his tendencies by 20%. Now ... why would he do that?
Liberty knew exactly what BYU was drawing up on defense and how to defeat it. They coached their QB accordingly and he executed the gameplan with ease, never once looking uncomfortable. Suddenly the 50% career passer was hitting on 80% of his throws.
Predictability and Malaise
Missed tackles
This blows my mind. Seven weeks ago BYU had beaten USF and Baylor and in those two games they combined to miss 12 tackles. In the last two weeks against Liberty and Arkansas BYU has missed 42. That's amazing. Even the horrifying 2017 team never had a run of despair like that. Against LSU, Utah, and Wisconsin PFF claims they missed only 30 times. This team exceeded that in one fewer game, against lesser opponents.
A nod to Allgeier
But context matters. BYU was not at an athletic disadvantage against Liberty. They could take risks at the line of scrimmage and recover in the secondary. Plus they were coming off a game where their defense was heavily exposed, their confidence was shaken, and they could use a morale boost. Plus they were facing a quarterback who had not had success in his career. Prior to the BYU game Jonathan Bennett had completed 66 of 136 passes. That's 49%. Against the blitz the guy was even worse, converting 44% of this throws. Under pressure he was even worse converting 24% of his passes.
Armed with this information BYU proceeded to blitz Bennett only 3 times on 35 dropbacks. I don't know much, but man that seems like a stupid approach. And Liberty was prepared for that approach because ...
Predictability is the worst ability
For his career Bennett takes a pretty fair amount of deep shots -- 27% of his career passes have been thrown 20 yards or more downfield. But facing BYU's drop-8 his coaches clearly told him to keep things conservative because he went deep only twice on 27 attempts (i.e., 7% of his throws). That means for this one game he radically altered his historic approach, changing his tendencies by 20%. Now ... why would he do that?
Liberty knew exactly what BYU was drawing up on defense and how to defeat it. They coached their QB accordingly and he executed the gameplan with ease, never once looking uncomfortable. Suddenly the 50% career passer was hitting on 80% of his throws.
Predictability and Malaise
BYU's defenders are in a funk right now. I don't know what is driving it, but they are so out of sorts that I wouldn't trust us to be able to stop any team in college football. BYU has to mix it up tonight, if not for schematic reasons then at least to possibly help get the players out of their heads.
Missed tackles
This blows my mind. Seven weeks ago BYU had beaten USF and Baylor and in those two games they combined to miss 12 tackles. In the last two weeks against Liberty and Arkansas BYU has missed 42. That's amazing. Even the horrifying 2017 team never had a run of despair like that. Against LSU, Utah, and Wisconsin PFF claims they missed only 30 times. This team exceeded that in one fewer game, against lesser opponents.
Injuries suck
It's unfair to call out one defender when the whole side is falling to pieces, but we haven't seen Keenan Pili reach the elite levels he displayed in his career pre-injury. For his entire career up through last year's ASU game, Pili was a tackling machine, missing only 16 times on 138 tackle attempts. This year through 7 games PFF claims he's already missed 11 times on 50 attempts. Alas injuries. Get healthy Mr. Pili, we're rooting for ya.
A nod to Allgeier
There's been a lot of talk about Allgeier's impact on the '21 team and its absence on this year's squad. I'll add some fuel to the fire by pointing out that PFF has credited Brooks with 17 tackles broken or avoided this year. Allgeier had 13 last year ... in the Virginia game alone. He finished with 81, which was 5th in the nation. Brooks is on pace for 600 yards after contact this year if he stays healthy. Allgeier finished last season with 1,143, good for 2nd in the country.
This comparison is not meant to be a slam on Brooks; I think he's good. It's just that Allgeier was operating on a god-like level in 2021. Of course we miss him. My question is how did it take people this long to realize it? There were way too many posts like this during the summer.
Play-action, where did you go?
Speaking of the running game, one notable change from '21 to '22 is BYU's reliance on the play-action game has dropped majorly. In '21 BYU used play-action on 40% of their dropbacks; this year they're using it only 29% of the time. Similarly, reliance on easy plays like screens has dropped this year from 15% to 12%. Coaches may want to increase those usages to make things easier on our offense because there's a key area we haven't been quite as good this year ...
Pressured passing
Jaren's numbers while under pressure this year have changed quite a bit from last season. In 2021 Jaren completed 62% of his passes while under pressure -- assuming you remove intentional throwaways and drops from the equation. This year that number has fallen all the way to 47%. He's getting sacked more often when under pressure as well. In all of 2021 Jaren's pressured dropbacks resulted in 12 sacks. This year those pressures have already resulted in 11 sacks and we're only 7 games in. Granted, not all pressures are equivalent, but by the numbers BYU's pass blocking has been remarkably consistent year-over-year, allowing pressure on 23% of Jaren's dropbacks in both 2021 and 2022. So what has changed?
One theory is Jaren is hunting the big play less frequently. In 2021 Jaren would hold the ball for an average of 4.29 seconds when pressured. This year that number is at 3.77. A half a second is a big difference. He's also more prone to leave the pocket when under pressure this year, having scrambled 7 times already in 2022 versus 6 all of last year. What does this all mean?
I'm not sure, I just find it curious. Maybe Jaren is less willing to dance around and risk a big hit while waiting for an open man? Maybe he's been coached to run with it sooner? Maybe the shoulder has made him a bit less accurate on the run? Whatever the case he's not been as rock solid under duress as he was in '21.
Puka is a mega-talent
Finally let's end on one positive note. Puka has been as awesome as we expected this year (with the exception of not being healthy). Among receivers he is ranked first in the country in PFF's elusive rating. First! He is 6th in the country in yards per route run (3.84), which is one measure of how easily and often a player gets open. If he were to keep that same level of efficiency over a full season's work, he'd be on pace for the second best receiving yardage season in BYU history --- much like I predicted back in August when times were happier as a fan. Alas, injuries.
When there may not be much else to look forward to watching tonight, at least we have him.
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