footballoutsiders.com had BYU ranked #24 going into the Boise game. They had us at #8 in offensive efficiency and at #44 in defensive efficiency.

Breaking down some more numbers defensively we were:

#87 in Defensive Available Yards (i.e. we give up a lot of yards)
#106 in Defensive First Down rate
#127 in Busted Drive Rate (percentage of drives that end in no yards)
#57 in defensive drive efficiency
#49 in points per drive

So the weak spot of our defense is giving up yards and a lot of first downs. We do decent at keeping the team out of the endzone, but even that number isn't great. The main reason for low scoring is due to long sustained drives and not giving up big plays, which results in fewer possessions.

Offensively we were #60 in First Down rate and #69 in Busted Drive Rate. Every other metric was in the top 25. BYU's lower point totals are moreso due to a low number of possessions, but their efficiency numbers are solid offensively.


That being said, the main reason we lost on Saturday wasn't the defense. It was the offense and the 4 turnovers. Yes, we gave up a few long drives, but 17 of their 26 points came on short fields in back to back to back drives (2 that started in the red zone).

If the defense can be critiqued, it was that their bend but don't break style of play limited possessions in the second half which limited our chances of mounting a comeback. But at the end of the day, it was the offense shooting ourselves in the foot that forced us to have to worry about a large comeback anyway.