I recently read the book, Winning Ugly, by Brad Gilbert. Most people likely know Brad Gilbert as Andre Agassi's tennis coach and as a commentator, but he actually was a pretty good tennis player in his own right, at one point was ranked #4 in the world. Interestingly, he didn't really have a big serve, or punishing groundstrokes and wasn't all that talented playing at the net (comparatively). He wasn't even quick like Michael Chang. What made him so good? He knew how to exploit the weaknesses and mitigate the strengths of his opponents. This included their mental strengths and weaknesses too. He was fastidious in his preparation. At some point in most matches his opponents would think, 'how in the world am I losing to this guy'?

How does a team come in averaging more than 39 points per game, led by one of the best dual threat QBs in college football, rush for 228 yards and end up with 9 points? Jay Hill had a plan. Chris Kleinman is the second coach to say about how they weren't prepared for what BYU played (in this case 2 safeties over top). Part of the plan was pressuring Avery Johnson (a relatively young QB) to make poor decisions. He did and they very were costly.

I am not saying BYU doesn't have a lot of talent on the defensive side of the ball or that they won ugly. Simply the fact that this season, Jay Hill has been brilliant in game planning and catering to the opponents and defanging two very potent offenses (SMU and KSU).