when looking at the record week-by-week, we actually have done fairly well in the first game of the season. Over the last 9 seasons, BYU is 6-3 in season openers. However, 2 of those losses were in the first 2 seasons that Bronco was head coach.

In the last 7 seasons, BYU is 6-1 in season openers (with last year's loss to Virginia being the only loss).

In the 2nd game of the season, BYU is 6-3, and in the 4th game of the season, BYU is 6-3. The biggest game that BYU has seemed to struggle with is that 3rd game. Over the last 9 seasons, BYU is 1-8 in the third game of the season. I'm not sure what the reasoning for that record is, but it's the only "week" on the season that BYU has a losing record. The second closest is that BYU is 5-4 in the 7th game of the season. Looking at the opponents for each of those "weeks" shows the following:

3rd game:

TCU
Boston College
Tulsa
UCLA (only W)
Florida St. x2
Utah x3

So 5 of the 8 losses here are to 2 teams - Utah and Florida St. This may be a function of opponent and not neccesarily that it's an early season game. Still the 1-8 record seems bad, even if we seem to play quality opponents in week 3 and out of the 8 losses, 5 of them were close losses.

As far as the 7th game of the season, this one is a matter of opponents. Our 5 wins are against:

UNLV
Eastern Washington
San Diego St.
Oregon St. (losing record)
Houston

Our 4 losses are against:
Notre Dame (#9)
TCU (unranked when played, but finished in top 15)
TCU (#4)
Oregon St. (#10)