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Aug 31, 2015
7:59:07am
Observations from last yeat's Houston Game
I re-watched last year's Houston game on Saturday. A couple of things that stood out:

1. Taysom didn't throw particularly well, but was still a holy terror for the Houston D. I think his ability to run gives him a 10 or 15% leeway in completion percentage. In other words, he can complete 55-60% of his passes and still give us a great chance to win, because he moves the team down the field and gets first downs in critical positions with his legs. I am really glad to hear that things are slowing down for Taysom, I think one of the things that makes QBs great is the processing time.

2. BYU's downfield coverage was actually pretty solid (except that garbage hail mary play). The BYU D mostly got beat because (1) they missed a lot of open field tackles on the underneath routes, (2) when pressure was applied and they missed the Q and the receivers were on adjusted their original routes and when the (3) Q put the ball where only the receiver could get it and the receivers made some great grabs. Though not stellar play the D-Line and Linebackers did a much better job containing O'Korn compared to 2013, when he ate us up. A couple of things that I think contributed to the pretty good coverage which we didn't see later in the year: 1) It was before Craig Bills had his concussions, I got the impression that he wasn't the same later in the season. 2) It was before Jordan Johnson went down with an injury. 3) I think there was better buy-in at that point in the season and that coverage unraveled when the D stopped trusting each other later in the year. I am hoping that BYU's open field tackling improves & Bronco's involvement and Langi's (vocal leader) increased role will help with the trust culture issues.

3. Mistakes & penalties played a huge part in that game. One example, UH were near the goal line but they had an offensive PI call, which made it like 1st and goal from the 19. BYU stopped them on third down, but after the whistle Pikula got a personal foul, which gave them a fresh set of downs from the 8...they scored a touchdown. Koroma got ejected (a little dubious, but still dumb on his part) for "punching" a guy. We missed his push in the run game for the 2nd half. BYU was up 23-0 in the second quarter and the only reason UH was in the game at all, was self-inflicted errors. I know the statistical analysis says that there is not a correlation between penalties and victories, but I am glad for the emphasis on this point. I could see a couple of times where BYU really paid the piper for those mistakes.

4. Takitaki has tantalizing potential. He is fast and physical. When he was in and blitzing he was always getting pressure on the Q. I really hope that he can learn the defense, because he will be a star and could play on Sundays in my opinion.

5. The O-line was brilliant and inconsistent. Having 323 rushing yards in a game is fantastic, but I watched Ului (I hate to single guys out, but just happened to notice him) whiff on several plays in pass protection. Jake Kuresa gave a great interview on ESPN 960 a few days ago, he said three things that made a great O-line were 1. Physicality, 2. Communication and 3. Consistency. I think part of the consistency equation in a high volume offense is to have 8-9 solid OLs, so there can be frequent rotation without a drop-off. Unfortunately I don't think BYU is there yet and we are a couple of injuries away being in trouble. That said, I really like what Coach 2J is doing and think the O-line should be improved from last year, which was an improvement from the previous year.

6. I think the receivers are great this year, but I don't know that they will be that much more proficient than what we had last year. Watching the game made me really appreciate Jordan Leslie. They had Jordan plus Mitch & Jurgens last year. So yes, I think the receivers will be better as a whole, but based on this game and others last year, I think it will be marginal, because they did a really good job last year.
jvr7
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jvr7
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