Superlative:
1) The defensive preparation. Coaches, players, trainers, nutritionists, the whole group. You don’t just show up and play sound ball for 4 quarters like that. The guys had put in the work watching film, preparing their bodies, getting their minds right on game night. (I believe the offensive guys prepared well too. When a QB struggles at this level, it makes everything look out of sorts).
2) The front 7 on Defense played mostly disciplined, assignment sound ball and dominated all game with no let ups. Tremendous fight.
3) Our coverage guys are good! I like our chances even against better QBs. We haven’t seen a really good one yet, though.
4) Our LBs really do fly around. We have some speed at LB and it shows.
5) It’s so nice to have corners that allow us to play more man coverage. Our corners are good!

Subpar:
1) QB play. It’s a tough deal being a QB. You shoulder a lot of credit for good or bad. But here’s the bold truth: Jake has a hard time remaining poised when the game speeds up, which it will continue to do as the competition improves. I call it the QB processing chip. You can have all the talent in the world, but if you don’t see and process well the parts moving all around you on game day, you won’t be successful. Jake says all the right things. I’ve known those guys too. Saying it and doing it live are not the same thing. BYU will not have a successful year unless the QB play improves significantly from tonight. That’s just the fact.
2) Our run game. Once LJ went out (which shows the drop off and our thin we are at RB), things changed. Jake also lost his confidence and he was just swimming out there mentally. The result, we couldn’t make them respect our pass game and so our run game went into the dumpster. Credit ARod at least for dialing up the option pitch and a couple other plays to eke out the win. Don’t count on this to work at a high percentage.
3) Another year where we have not solved the short yardage problem. No under center package, no power package, no QB wildcat or workable rpo. Still a weakness. Will cost us a game or two.
4) We have maybe one of the best WR personnel we have had, and it looks questionable whether we can get the ball to them enough.
5) ARod saw how Jake was playing and went conservative to protect him. Fair enough. In fact, it may have allowed us to pull the game out. But if that’s where we stand going forward, it’s going to be a long year and it will be hard to hold the team together all season. Better make changes somewhere, personnel, scheme, play calling, etc.