So why do I care? Well, I have become a student of the game when it comes to offensive play calling over the last 18 months. It started when I was going in to my 3rd year of coaching little league and I stumbled upon Dan Casey's material on social media. Dan runs a "One Play A Day" email service and posts plays on social media. He also sells books, including "Trends in Offensive Football" and sells modules online regarding coaching of the run game, screens, mesh, and empty sets. For the last 18 months, I get an email every weekday breaking down a play with a schematic and a gif of a team running a play (it's usually college). I have also watched countless other videos during my free time regarding the same. My algorithm/FYP on social media is about 33% football plays at this point.

So what does this have to do with BYU and last night? BYU is a commonly featured team on these posts because of their creative offense and play calling. It is clear ARod is a heavy student of modern day concepts. With regards to Utah, I have only seen them featured once in 18 months. 🙁

After reading all the posts attacking your OC this morning, I decided to go back and watch all the first half offensive plays. Let me just tell you something. The current version of ARod is an excellent OC. You might watch plays and give credit to the RB or QB or WR, but I watch play design. Your play designs are beautiful. So much misdirection, motioning, and huge holes for RBs/QBs to run through and pass trees that simply get WR open. While I am going to focus on your incompletions below, let me just compliment the quality of your run plays.
Go ahead and give your RBs credit, but they are getting a lot of help from the scheme/design. It's a thing of beauty. It's basically the exact opposite of Utah offensive football.

Let me recap your 5 incompletions from the first half and a bonus incompletion from the first play of the second half:

These aren't going to be in order. I am just putting them out there in order of my memory.

- First, there was a deep ball to I think Marion? where he had one on one coverage. I am unsure if there was miscommunication on the route, but the issue here was the throw. It's either a bad throw or a bad route, but the play achieved a 1 on 1 situation and Retzlaff took a shot. He had another open receiver at the top of the screen on a dig inside, but I have no issue with the deep ball. Issue was execution.

- Second, there was another deep ball to Lassiter. This is a beautiful play design where Ratzleff looks off the WR to the left and Lassiter looks like he is running a dummy route. It works to perfection. The entire Kansas secondary is fooled and is covering the left side while Lassiter takes off and beats his man by several yards. You can tell they designed this play, because as soon as Ratzliff throws it, the WR who was the decoy at the top of the screen puts his hands up. He thinks it's a TD. The play worked to perfection. Issue was execution by Ratzliff.

- Third, there was a pass to Roberts where he sat down in a zone about 11 yards down the field at the top of the screen. Ratzliff simply makes a bad throw and Roberts can't hold it. But he was open. Issue was execution by Ratzliff.

- Fourth, there was a red zone throw on third down where Kansas brought a heavy blitz and every WR was in man on man. The second receiver in at the top of the screen runs a little whip route (fake slant to out) and he is open with room to run for a TD if the ball is delivered well. This is a case where Ratzliff needs to recognize that Kansas is bringing more players than they have blockers and he needs to hit the hot route (Wedding Crashers reference). He holds it to wait for the deep post/slant and delivers a ball that isn't catchable. Again, the issue was execution by Retzlaff, but also give credit to Kansas D.

- Fifth, there was the INT on the fade in the end zone. You can question the call. You can say fades are lazy and low percentage. I wouldn't disagree with you. But it's first down and there is still 45 seconds left. This throw is abysmal. It isn't back shoulder. It isn't deep corner. It's in the worst possible place you could put that ball. It's execution by Ratzliff.

- Bonus play - The first play of the second half was almost an INT. Why? Your left tackle completely whiffs on his block and Ratzliff has to get rid of the ball a second early, which allows a LB to tip it. Again, it's an execution issue. That same LT completely whiffed on an earlier play where you were going to have a wide open wheel route down the sideline. They came back to essentially the same play later when Ropati scored on the pass play. A beautifully designed play both times. One was executed and one was not.

I stopped there because I have things to do. But I love watching beautiful offense design and BYU really has fantastic offensive play design. I know there were some weird calls in second half, like option to the short side as an example. But ARod designed and called a nearly perfect first 30 minutes and BYU only had 10 points to show for it. With better execution, you score three more TDs in the first half alone (Lassiter deep, the hot route with the Kansas blitz, and 2nd/3rd down options inside the 10 after an incomplete fade). And that's not even counting the missed deep throw to Marion.