And when I say outcoached, I don't mean simply laying it at the feet of Tuiaki and a 3 man defensive front. We were out-game planned. Chadwell's plan was to limit BYU's offensive possessions with a ball control offense, eating up as much clock as possible with the option game, knowing that although we played Navy this year, and BYU has a lot of history with the option, it is not good when you have zero practice time to prep for it (not to mention the wrinkles they have put in it). It was clear they were running first, and if passing his instructions to his QB were if your first read isn't there, just run for it - no risky throws, no turnovers. On defense, they just hoped they could get enough pressure on Zach to cause a few stops, and with fewer possessions, they could stay within striking distance to pull out the W. Needless to say his plan worked very well.

Our game plan on the other hand, was the plug and play game plan of essentially all the other games this season - to manage points on defense and expect Zach and company to outscore the opponent. The problem is that only works if you have the possessions to do so. It has worked this season because we've jumped out to the lead and had that cushion. When you fall behind, or need possessions to score and win, you need something different. What should we have done? A few of my gripes...

- Up Tempo offense: If they are trying to limit your possessions, then be efficient with your time. We started to hurry up after a little bit, but it seemed we were late to that adjustment and didn't keep it up when we took a small lead. We left a lot of clock on the field.

- No wasted possessions: I don't mind trying one trick play after you get a turnover to just to go for it and see what happens, but I don't agree with the mentality that you treat the whole possession like a freebie and if you don't succeed, oh well, just punt, no harm no foul since you weren't expecting that possession anyway. NO. Until you have a comfortable lead you don't waste possessions, especially when your opponent is actively trying to limit your possessions. After their fumble, we run two lateral passes? Gotta do better than that.

- Keeping it in front of you on D: This has been our MO all year, and no one could really argue with the success, as frustrating as it might be to the viewer. I mean, we were undefeated and winning by comfortable margins. That should not have been the way we played this though. You could argue that this philosophy still resulted in giving our offense a chance to win at the end, but I say it shouldn't come down to that. We lost the time of possession battle 37:51 to 22:09. I have understood and been fine with the defensive approach of managing points and not worrying about the yards, as long as we're winning comfortably, it didn't matter. But you have to be more aggressive if they are gashing you repeatedly and eating clock, particularly when you are behind or in a tight game.

I applaud Kalani and the coaches for pulling off the game and being willing to do it. So I give them a pass here, but it's okay to admit that in this one, we were just plain outcoached. Credit to Chadwell.