and they game plan Saturday, at least as called, because I was not at practice, was questionable. It would have been prudent to ride the momentum from the past two games and run the ball more early until UMass proved they could consistently stop it. Mix in some more perimeter stuff (spot screens, fly sweeps) and work to maintain manageable down and distance situations. This let's you dictate when you throw and we let UMass dictate when we threw, which allowed them to bring pressure and rattle a true freshman QB in his second career start, which is the smart thing to do defensively.

All of that is not what concerns me though. You need to anticipate teams will pressure a QB with so little experience and I think we ran 1 screen play all night, so maybe have a couple more screen plays in the game plan. Beyond that in game adjustments, especially at halftime were non-existent. UMass was not doing anything ultra fancy in their blitz scheme, 4 guys to the open side a lot, bring more than we can block (backs were not stellar in pass pro at all, and this is the area we really miss Jamaal in).

I didn't see a lot of check downs/hot calls, which were fairly apparent most of the time because Umass was showing the blitz frequently. As a coach, you need to get your QB and receivers on the same page and attack the vacated zones in these situations and I just didn't see it nearly enough. Critchlow was also wound way too tight out of the gate, again run it or give him some easy throws to calm the nerves.

I am certainly not proclaiming myself superior to BYU's coaches, just pointing out very basic things that need to be picked up on, accounted for and countered. To see very little of this was disheartening.

If you look back at the UNLV game, we won that game for the same reason we lost this one. Critchlow was given some easy throws early. As the game progressed the main focus was running the ball and it was UNLV that never adjusted, which allowed BYU to just keep pounding it down their throats.