The BYU Offense finally did something that they hadn’t done in a long time. They won a close game despite a huge amount of mistakes.
Lets list the BYU mistakes.
The BYU special team gave up a 95 yard kickoff return.
Taysom Hill threw three picks, one for a touchdown the wrong way and one costing them points inside the five. Two of them were thrown directly to the defense, clearly poor throws. The third was a deep ball and under thrown.
Tayson Hill also took a few sacks when he could have thrown the ball away, including a safety, a step out of bounds, and a late attempt at a throw away that resulted in intentional grounding during a critical drive.
BYU gave up 13 penalties for 123 yards, many of them were crucial plays.
But the offense finally outscored their teams mistakes. The Cougar defense bent a lot more than usually, however, they didn’t bend near as bad as the score shows. BYU held Houston to 30 points. Houston earned 16 points that the BYU defense didn’t give up. 7 on a kickoff return, 7 on a interception, and 2 on a safety.
Houston fought hard. It would be great to say that Houston was underrated by the nation and overlooked by not being ranked at 5-0. However, BYU was their first real test of the year and BYU made so many mistakes, the win was gift-wrapped for Houston. Houston failed to win despite BYU’s massive amount of mistakes. Houston may not like to hear this, but their 5-0 record is a product of being just a bit better than mediocre but playing a bit less than mediocre teams. Houston proved that they are only almost as good as an unranked and mistake prone BYU team.
This is a turning point win for BYU, however. They failed to win close against Virginia (mostly the offense failed to score and made many mistakes). BYU failed to win close against Utah, despite multiple opportunities to drive in for another touchdown. Utah knocked of #5 Stanford last week, making BYU’s loss to Utah suddenly not look so bad.
Most poeple don’t realize this, but by going independent and increasing their strength of schedule dramatically, BYU has put them in a place where if they end the season with only two losses, they could potentially prove they are a BCS team and earn a BCS bid. But that is only possible if they can get big wins against Boise State, Wisconsin, and Notre Dame as well as win the games they should win, against Idaho and Nevada.
BYU beat Texas who is in the top of the Big 12. If Texas wins the conference and goes to a BCS game, and BYU wins out and offers a 10-2 record with wins against a wave of high quality opponents, it will be an easy choice to include BYU in a BCS game.
Since we are dreaming, we could dream that Utah could also sneak into the PAC 12 conference championship game, win, then play BYU for a rematch in a BCS game. Fan of football, whether red or blue, can only hope.
Football matters in Utah.