Watched all our BYU games this year on TV, this was the first one I’ve attended. Some observations:

Sometimes a loss is the best thing that can happen to an undefeated team, to push them to the next level. It displays areas of weakness in the coaches and players, to correct and turn into strengths.

BYU should have won this game by 28 points.

Frustrating to watch. Except for the opening drive, the whole loss is on the offense. And they better own it.

One thing was obvious: BYU is an outstanding, and very talented football team. But way-underperforming.

From the outset the energy level among many of the players wasn’t there. Too much celebrating after the Utah win? The thing we feared happened—an unnecessary loss after a big win. BYU had big reasons to come in fired up and edgy: They got kicked by Kansas last year and a national commentator said we were overrated and would lose.

The game was essentially over when Retzlaff threw his interception at the goal line at the end of the first half. After leading a brilliant drive. It was just a foolish pass, poorly executed. And our quarterback did the same thing a week or two ago and through luck escaped an interception. Same play. Did they go over this with him and drill on it? It would have been 17-10, and then we would get the ball in the second half, drive for another touchdown, and it’s game over.

On the final drive, we had all the momentum. Nearly every play was 10 yards or more, and it was first and goal on the 15. And what did we do? Predictable. We halfback up the middle for 3 yards. The middle was dead, stacked! What we did was self-destruct, taking our momentum away. We were successfully making brilliant misdirections angled across the middle line the whole drive! 

We should have thrown on that down, a low slant for 7-10 yards. Instead, we run three futile running plays, two of them lateral. And now we have a near-impossible 4th and 11 in the red zone. And AGAIN, on the final play, we fail to pass the ball BEYOND the yardstick for the first down.

I still don’t believe we’re getting the ball in the hands of our superstars enough, our playmakers DOWNFIELD. There were some brilliant runs by Ropati, Marion, etc. Ropati is itching to become a breakout player! So we have Chase, Marion, Jo Jo, Ropati, Lassiter, and others, and why can’t we get the fastest guy on the team, Kingston, going DOWNHILL instead of laterally? Let him break out on a downfield pass!

And our outstanding tight ends are silent—only taking lateral throws. Why can’t we throw to them downfield, 15, 20-yard receptions, or innovate with two tight ends when we're stacked in that room, like the BYU of yesteryear? Or as Utah in past years has done so effectively.

We’re not making the best use of our talent, and that’s on our coaches.

The defense throughout the game kept raising their hands to the crowd, to incite them. I noticed they stopped doing this in the fourth quarter. Did the coaches finally get after them: “Stop relying on the crowd, execute your assignments, and anticipate to make big plays.”? Which they did toward the end.

Forget about polls—the only way we will get in the championship series is to beat Arizona State and Houston and get in the league championship and win it. It’s wake-up call time. Shut down the cameras and podcasts and interviews, players and coaches. Get away from the hype and get it done.

The next level.

And don’t say: “We’re here to…learn.” This could still be an extraordinary year, but you don’t have a second to waste.