-- Yes it's only a FBS game, but wow is it better than last year
Chase Roberts, PFF says you're fast
He burst onto the scene with 223 receiving yards in his first three games as a Cougar, highlighted by the incredible "Chase is on the case" display against Baylor. Then he disappeared; the rest of the season he only nabbed 134 receiving yards.
He was more available in 2023, but only averaged 48 yards a game, and only went over 100 yards once in the season. He had four games with less than 15 yards receiving. He had six games with 3 or fewer catches. Then again, he also had the catch of the year which won us the Arkansas game.
Coming into the season I didn't know what to expect for Chase in his upperclassmen years. His high school pedigree suggests awesomeness:
- 10th in career catches
- 6th in receiving yards in a single season
- 6th in receiving yards in a career
- 6th in receiving touchdowns in a career
The last two players we've had who own the Utah high school record books like that were Puka Nacua and Dallin Holker (FYI Cody Hagen is likewise a top 10 everywhere record guy). Could Chase rise to their level? I wasn't sure. And then I saw this very interesting nugget from PFF:
Now ... something in that first paragraph seems like a mistake. Chase Roberts was not faster than Texas speedster and combine record-setter Xavier Worthy. Maybe the paragraph meant to say Chase will be the faster receiver in 2024, or maybe the numbers they ran excluded Texas and Oklahoma since they were headed to the SEC this summer. But set aside those nitpicks for a minute. The main takeaway is Chase can move! That one stat catapulted my faith into the sky and through one game -- albeit against a FBS opponent -- he delivered.
This was not a great week for 2024 BIFF winner Ryner Swanson. Four freshman played 10 snaps or more. Seven played 5 or more. Ryner played just one. Here's the list.
Faletau Satuala - 14
Tommy "Kiss my" Prassas - 13
Cody Hagen - 13
Ephraim Asiata - 10
Tre Alexander - 9
Tei Nacua - 8
Jonathan Kabeya - 6
Viliami Po'uha - 3
Ryner "The BIFF" Swanson - 1
Poka Haunga - 0
How about the freshman safety duo of Satuala and Prassas leading the field in reps? It's kind of interesting that the top two corners rarely came off the field (Marque Collins and Jakob Robinson each played 86% of the total defensive snaps) while the starting safeties got in and out pretty frequently (Tanner Wall and Micah Harper only played 47% of the snaps). What does it all mean? Remember this is called PFF curiosities, not PFF answers ... but here it seems to indicate that the coaches are comfortable with our depth at safety, or at least more comfortable than they are at corner.
LJ vs Hinckley
Martin played 38 snaps, Hinckley 35.
Martin played 11 passing snaps, Hinckley 10.
Martin rushed for more yards (67 to 57), Hinckley rushed for more yards after contact (40 to 28).
For some reason this pairing gives me Katoa and Allgeier vibes from the 2020 season. And no no no no no I am not saying I think Ropati is Allgeier. Allgeier owns the best skill player game in BYU history, the best rushing season in BYU history, the most touches in a season in BYU history. You don't compare people to that.
But what I am saying is that starting the 2020 season I thought Katoa would be the workhorse with Allgeier coming in for moments of power running. I expected Katoa would take 70% of the snaps throughout the season and boy was I wrong. I've been thinking the same coming into 2024 with LJ ... and maybe I'll be wrong? Now it's only been one game, and LJ is maybe injured (?) but I like what I've seen of Ropati and it wouldn't shock me if at season's end he's carved out a big time role, playing at least 45% of the snaps.
Jet Sweeps, the good and the bad
Each year we run a little less jet sweep. In 2020 it made up 8% of our runs. It dropped to 7% in 2021 and 5% in 2022, before ticking up slightly to 6% last year. I'm a fan of the jet sweep!
From 2018 to early 2023 we averaged a solid 5.2 yards per sweep (4.8 if you take out Puka's monster 75-yard sweep from that one USF game). But last year it struggled. We ran 19 sweeps and gained only 3.3 yards per run. Part of that was predictability - in the Grimes era we were extremely balanced running half of our sweeps left and half to the right. But during the Arod era we were tilted, with 65% of our sweeps going to the right. Were defenses able to key on our sweeps because of this? Maybe.
The good news is during the latter part of 2023 Arod course corrected and at season's end we were balanced, with 10 sweeps to the left and 9 to the right. To start this season we ran two to the right, one to the left, for a total of 14 yards. Good start!
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