BYU Cougars postgame report card vs TCU

By Todd Erickson  |   Thursday, October 16, 2008  |  Comments( 1 )

BYU Cougars
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It was a bloodbath. The Horned Frogs mauled the Cougars 32-7 in Fort Worth and destroyed BYU’s chances of playing in a BCS bowl this season. The first quarter had not even elapsed before TCU was up by two touchdowns and purple-faced students were chanting “Overrated.”

Max Hall personally removed his name from any more Heisman talk this season with a horrendous performance. He threw two interceptions and TCU defenders dropped three other sure picks. He fumbled the ball away twice—one was converted into the Frogs first touchdown and the other salted the game away after the Cougars had driven to the TCU 10-yard line with eight minutes remaining. His final stats: 22-42, 274 yards, 2 INT.

Not to be let off the hook, the BYU offensive line gave up seven sacks. The Frog defenders forced several other hurries and errant passes by Hall.

The defense didn’t do much to help. TCU scored on their first three possessions on their way to an overwhelming 23-0 halftime lead. Aside from one punt in the second quarter, the Horned Frogs put points on the board on six of their first seven possessions.

BYU’s Offense grade: D-

Quite frankly, the only bright spot beside BYU avoiding a shutout was Austin Collie’s fifth consecutive game with more than 100 receiving yards. He finished with 6 receptions and 116 yards.

Harvey Unga had 53 yards rushing on 14 carries, but the lost yardage from Hall’s sacks netted BYU 23 yards on the ground for the night.

Pass protection was nonexistent for most of the game and Hall consistently forced his throws into double and triple coverage. All four of the Cougar turnovers were attributed to Hall.

BYU’s Defense grade: D-

All you have to do is look at the numbers to come up with this grade. The Cougars only managed to stop TCU on one drive and gave up 410 total yards along the way. The Horned Frogs chewed up 27 first downs and converted 11 of 16 third down attempts.

The Frogs’ 240 yards rushing was led by Jeremy Kerley’s 77 yards on nine carries (8.6 yards per carry). Overall, TCU averaged 4.7 yards per carry on the night.

QB Andy Dalton didn’t need to pass for TCU to win, but when he did it was with laser accuracy. Dalton connected on 12 of 19 passes for 170 yards and two TDs.

The Cougar defense managed to record one sack and recovered one fumble in the onslaught.

BYU Special Teams grade: C-

If blame can be tossed around for the Cougars’ abysmal showing, the special teams managed to dodge most of it. Aside from giving up a 57-yard kickoff return to Aaron Brown (which could have gone all the way had Brown not lost his balance and stepped out of bounds) the special teams were basically flat-liners in every other category.

O’Neill Chambers returned seven kicks for 137 total yards (19.6 yards per return) and C.J. Santiago averaged 40.7 yards on three punts, landing one inside the TCU 20.

BYU Coaches grade: D-

I have decided to add this category from this game forward because the Cougars looked unprepared, lacked motivation, and were unable to adjust to the TCU game plan. You can lay that blame on the coaching staff.

Bronco Mendenhall has subscribed to a philosophy that every game is just another game and has refused to acknowledge the importance of particular opponents. To the contrary, Utah has placed BYU signage in the bottom of their locker room urinals and TCU’s Gary Patterson admitted to outfitting the Horned Frogs’ tackling dummies with BYU logos to foster a fierce focus on their bitter rival.

Something like that must work because TCU played with 110 percent more fire and emotion than the Cougars managed.

Now, you could say that BYU managed to play with that same fire and emotion in the UCLA game this year and you would be right, but after tangling with the Bruins twice before in the previous 12 months and still failing to gain any respect from their opponent or the sports media, I doubt their motivation for that game came from the coaching staff.

Overall Team grade: D-

Goodbye winning streak. Goodbye conference winning streak. Goodbye Top 10 ranking (and probably Top 20 ranking) too. Heck, BYU might very well tumble out of the entire rankings this weekend. Goodbye BCS. The offensive output has gone from 44 to 34 to 21 to 7 in the past four games. Will the Cougars decide to show up next week against UNLV? If they do, will they sustain that rebound for the rest of the season? The only way the Cougars can come close to rinsing the foul taste of this butt-kicking out of their mouths is to start a new unbeaten streak and carry it on throughout the rest of this season.


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About Todd Erickson

Todd Erickson is a member of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and pens the RealFootball365 Top 25 college football power rankings and "Fourth and inches..." weekly columns from August thru January. He is currently working on the second edition of Road to the Rose Bowl ...
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