sustained ground attack led three drives of 6+ minutes that ended in points and kept RJ Harvey and company on the sidelines. BYU’s offense has been on a heater lately. BYU ranks 14th nationally in yards per play over the last 3 games and 12th in points per game. From the second half of Oklahoma State to the end of the 3rd quarter against UCF, BYU scored points on 10 out of 11 drives for a staggering 5.3 points per drive. Even when they aren’t scoring, they are sustaining drives with just three three-and-outs over the last three weeks. BYU has gained 68% of available yards over that span, which would rank 4th nationally if sustained over a full season. Jake Retzlaff has been excellent, but he has been all season, so what changed? The run game. Since LJ Martin's return against Arizona, BYU is averaging 6.1 yards per carry, up from 4.2 yards per carry over the first 5 games. If BYU’s offense can sustain this level of production, there may not be an offense left on the schedule that will be able to keep up.
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Jay Hill has gotten a lot of credit for BYU’s miraculous turnaround, and rightfully so. He is a P4 head coach caliber in every sense. But giving him all the credit is a massive disservice to the rest of the coaching staff. TJ woods has this offensive line generating over 3 yards before contact the last few weeks. Kelly Poppinga has punters snapping the ball between their legs on fake field goal attempts. Aaron Roderick took the offense from 100th in scoring to 22nd with the same roster. This has been a team effort, which leads me to Kalani.

BYU needs to do whatever they can to lock up Kalani long term. You can say all you want about him only being as good as his coordinators, but if BYU wins one more game this season, it will be the 4th unique set of coordinators to win 9 games under Kalani. Since 2020, BYU is 11th nationally in win percentage, ahead of schools like Penn State, Washington, Texas, and *cough cough* Utah. He's had 13 players drafted since 2017, more than any coach since Lavell, and is the only coach in BYU history with a winning record against P4 opponents. One could also argue that he is one of the best big-game coaches in BYU history, with the highest win percentage against ranked opponents (40%), including a 7-7 record since 2019, which ranks 12th nationally over that span (20th in total wins). Couple that with an 8-0 start, a top 10 ranking, and a chance to play for a conference title in November of year 2 of the Big12. The time has come to #ExtendKalani