College football still makes the mistake of including sacks and the lost yardage resulting from those sacks in the Rushing Totals. The NFL does not because they don't belong in the Rushing Totals.

Here's what is really important:

In 2018 Utah for the season, now this includes the Sack Yardage but since you have already provided us the numbers including Sack Yardage we can just use that as a comparison. These are the season total averages for Utah;

Average Yards Gained/Carry- 4.5 YPC Average Yards given up/Carry- 2.9 YPC In the BYU-Utah Game the averages which you already shared were Utah- 4.2 YPC and BYU 3.3 YPC

So based upon raw numbers BYU fared well against Utah. BYU held Utah below its average YPC, but the loss of Moss would definitely factor into that. On the flip side, BYU averaged almost half a yard better, .4, than Utah Averaged giving up. When you include the fact that BYU did that with a defensive player starting at RB, it shows BYU actually fared well against Utah's D.

I expect both the Utah DL and the BYU OL to be much improved this year. Both return a lot of good players. What most people are not factoring into the equation are two very important factors:

1- BYU should have plenty of options at RB that are RB's rather than being forced to use a defensive player at RB.

2- Utah while returning a lot on the DL, has a severe lack of experience at LB. This is a big factor many are ignoring. And in the first game of the season, experience or a lack there of can be big.

On the other side of the ball, saying Utah's OL and BYU's OL are a wash is just silly. The most important factor for an OL is not the 5 individual starters and how good they are individually, it is the ability of those 5 players to work together as one cohesive unit. With the changes on the Utah's OL this off season and the changes to the O overall, expecting them to be ready to go right out of the gate is a lot to ask for.

On BYU's side the loss of Kaufusi is big. But that is big against the Utah Pass game. It is also big in the overall game. It is not however a big factor against the Utah run game.

What is a big factor is BYU only loses 1 guy in their regular DL rotation that saw about 10 guys seeing regular game reps. BYU also returns 2 of their 3 starting LB's. Here is where the loss of Takitaki is a factor. And his loss against the Utah run game is much bigger than the loss of Kaufusi.

Overall, with all of the returning players with reps both on the DL and at LB, the advantage here is definitely an edge to BYU. If the game were later in the season it would be a different discussion.