Week one is in the books. Not exactly the thundering entrance BYU was hoping to make coming into the Big 12 winning 14-0. However, a win is a win no matter how ugly it might be. One point or a simple fourteen points. Typically, the first week will be ugly for many teams. Look at TCU who was favored by 20.5 and end up losing by three. Look at Laramie WY who stunned Texas Tech in double overtime. Texas State shocked Baylor 42-31. Fresno State beat Purdue. Northern Illinois took out Boston College, etc. Take the dub and move on.
First, there is the good. BYU pitched it's first FBS shutout since 2012. One will recall vividly how porous the defense was last year which led to the staff overhaul. Jay Hill was brought in, who went to work and was absolutely outstanding. Sam Houston was only were able to rush for 38 yards the entire game. They crossed the 50 yard line only once. Considering the 57 snaps, 19 of those resulted in hurries, tackles for losses, QB hurries and/or turnovers. Of those snaps BYU only missed two tackles the entire night. One could say that tackling school last night was fully accredited. Bearcat offense was only able to manage 4.2 yards per drive. Hill's defensive secondary players Jakob Robinson, Eddie Heckard, Hamden Garrett came up bigtime. Props to Jay Hill who deserves the game ball.
Now the bad, or the meh. BYU's special teams were anything but. Punt returner Hobbs Nyberg never could seem to break free on his chances. As for the kicking game well that still remains to be seen. The bright spot was certainly punter Ryan Rehkow who was named the Big 12 special teams co-player of the week with his performance on Saturday. Against the bearcats Ryan had nine punts for 479 yard (an average of 53.2 per kick). Seven of those were at least 50 yards, with two going for 64 and 65, including 4 downed inside the 20 yard line. Having numbers like that can't hurt his chances at the Ray Guy award.
Finally, onto the ugly. All is not well in Provo as Aaron Roderick's offense seemed almost non-existent. The offense could never seem to find it's groove. Too many third and longs. Honestly, it was non-inspiring. As many would say things begin and end in the trenches. The trench play from the OL was clearly an issue which impacted other areas. Receivers seemed to struggle to get any sort of separation without Epps and Keanu Hill out of the lineup. The running backs (both Aiden Robbins and Deion Smith) also had issues finding the holes to move the chains. It seemed to impact Slovis as well where it felt much was forced. The clock is ticking moving forward towards conference play in a couple of weeks. Even Trevor Matich former great appeared on BYU's sports nation who gave his insight and it wasn't pretty. Freshman LJ Martin came in and gave the cougars a much needed spark. LJ showed the vision and the timing when to hit the holes, etc. Can A-Rod fix the struggling offense? He has plenty of a track record to show that he can.
One common factor in the offense is the play of the offensive line. This can be fixed but must be repaired quickly. Looking at the OL as a hole there is a theme needed to change the issues summed up in one word. Cohesion. Coming together as a whole. Could this be the lack of chemistry on the OL? This will take repetitions for the OL to mesh together. This is the first time Kingsley is playing LT his natural spot. This is the first year Weylin is at LG. This is the first time for Maile playing at BYU. This is the first time for Pay at RG. Even first time for Caleb at RT (was LT at Oklahoma State last year). Time will tell is they can come together quick enough for the Big12 conference play.
