Take aways

Disclosure:

I have been, seen and watched SDSU and byu have a go at each other for many years. Dirty play we might say about byu? This has been a recurring theme for byu. The fact is if you do not get caught you keep doing it. byu fans will never admit. Again you get caught or you do not. byu fans don’t start telling me about one of our plays. I can write (with illustrations) a post as long as the Webster dictionary on how you specialized on playing out dirty plays. It is nothing new and don’t try to deny it. Marshal Faulk could give a sworn senate testimony about it.

Now let’s be real.
I would like to emphasize on five key points:
Tune, Patrick Paul, Cauthen, Special Teams Coaches & Marquez

Clayton tune:
UH2020 has been writing for a year that Clayton tune is garbage and he should leave on the first available UBER ride to no man’s land. Your anti Tune posts have one purpose in mind. You know what it is.
Clayton’s stats:
21/31 2 td’s and I rushing TD
He went toe to toe with a Heisman candidate. For at least half to two third of the game he actually was better than Wilson.
Clayton played an outstanding game. UH2020 eat your words and starts giving credit where credit is due.
Clayton scrambling ability kept us in the game. I have no doubt about it. It could have turned ugly really quickly. The sign of a leader is to take the “bull by the horn” that he did. How did Marques played? Yes he was 100% contained. Clayton still found a way to move us forward.
He showed and proved to me that he is as good as I thought he could be. He is only going to get better. This is outstanding for us.
Keep at it Clayton, keep working and work harder. When you have played two games and your opposition has played 4 or 5 you gotta even work harder than you have ever had.

Now I am going to point out some glaring facts.
Patrick Paul has the world in front of him. He has the potential to play on Sunday. Tonight he played as if he did not sleep well last night. His penalties were a “game killer” CDH went after him for a crucial reason. His position alone was key in this game. He can protect the QB but he can also block to allow us a more effective running game. He messed up and came back. He came back as if he had woken up from a bad dream. His game went sky high and allowed us to move forward. All of a sudden in the second half and especially in the 4th quarter he went back to playing as if he did not sleep the night before. Remember friends, players can assume pressure, including the night before a game better than others. He clearly did not. Mr. Paul is going to have to make a decision. Do I want to be a hall of famer or do I want to throw it away? This is as much as I think of him. I mentioned it before the season started. Our OL and especially Paul have huge potential…potential, get my point?

Joe Cauthen:
We started terribly then we masterfully adjusted then…Mr.Cauthen got completely outcoached. Football is a chess game. Yes it’s cliche but Mr. Cauthen had no adjustment(s) for byu’s second half adjustments. Get the point? byu is a solid team for their squad but also for their coaching staff. We did not do enough to contain them in the second half. We have to come quickly to some “defense” understanding. smu is not byu but they can clearly take notice of a glaring lack of second half adjustments and how byu was able to move forward.

Special teams coach:
byu is known. I am going to repeat it. Again I am going to repeat it for using “trick” plays. They used two against us on ST. This IMO is inexcusable. One play maybe? It is even a stretch especially in such a close game. Two plays? That is on you. This changed the game’s momentum. There is always a fine line between winning and losing. Special teams play a huge role. Clayton Tune played his heart out and for this to happen…I have seen byu do this for many years. There is absolutely no reasons that it should happen to us. A shanked punt? Again, you perform or you do not. This was a crucial turning point.
Bryson Smith? The ball is going out of bonds and you decide to return it on our 1 yard line? Why ask why"

Marquez:
We all know what Marquez can do. Stats do not lie. He had one, yes one reception for 19 yards. Your job is to get open. You get tripled teamed? You find a way to get open. The NFL was watching tonight.

Key players under performed at the wrong time. That will make you lose a key game.

I am going to give a pass to CDH on this one. The calendar and COVID-19 might be the reason we lost this game. A few days ago CDH pointed out that we are not in game shape. What he meant was that we did not have enough “turf” time under our cleats. He was unfortunately right. Game repetitions and especially getting hit is key.
Tomorrow we gotta keep looking forward and zero in on our next opponent. Every game is a chess game. We could have won but we lost. How we deal with it will tell us how “brainly driven our team is” That I can’t wait to see.

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Agree with everything…we were right where we needed to be late in the third up 2 scores. Just disappointing we weren’t able to seal the deal.

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Definitely a case. Those tricks from BYU were smart. As much as the loss sucked this was a fun game to watch.

Tune could have ran a few plays when there were open spaces, but he did really well today.

Laine Wilkins with that kick.

Ref with that bad call

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I just think we’ve shown we’re a lot better than last year and we were playing a good team that was a good test. We didn’t embarrass ourselves those who watched the game know the game was way closer than than the score showed. Onto the next one.

Byu is really good. There were 4 touchdowns where I was just like OK good play they’re just better than us on that one and have a playmaker at QB. Our programs are in two different places. Byu is in an up year we are in a turn the corner year.

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Game presser:

small12 refs…

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I agree with most of what you said. I think it should be noted though that Bryson Smith is not the starting punt returner. Marcus Jones is the starter, and he didn’t play last night. A guy like that is a game changer, not to mention he’s a good defensive back. I didn’t see D’Anthony Jones either, a guy that looked like the second best pass rusher last week, right behind Turner.

As for Marcus Stevenson, I don’t think it’s fair to say he should just get open if he’s triple team. It doesn’t work that way. There are WR’s in the NFL that can’t get open when they’re doubled teamed. It was just a good game plan for the BYU DC. They took him out of the game and force us to beat them with other players. I think this is where I would like to see our offense be a little more diverse and a little less predictable. I liked Tube threw to the TE last night but most of the play-calling looks really vanilla.

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Drew you know that Marquez has “options” Our plays are designed that way. Good and great WR’s are always doubled teamed on Sundays and they do produce. For the most part we had good protection up front except for what I wrote earlier. Marquez I am sure will tell you that he could/should have done a lot better. He too will learn from it. He has to. Regarding Bryson we are writing about a bright player. He messed up and too will learn why he took that decision.
I will write again that quite a few of these “stupid” mistakes just added up in a game vs a solid team. That is not a coincidence. Scheduling a team like byu at this stage of the season was perfect. We never expected to have five games cancelled. This played a crucial part in this game.
1 100% agree with you regarding our TE’s plays. Again, this is only our second game. I really appreciate how Christian “sees” the field. He is going to flourish in this offense.

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@92010Coogs

You have to @ people if you want them to see your posts.

I have to say I’m not terribly impressed with you negatively calling out individual kids.

Tune is the man. Paul’s a freshman.

Special teams, I thought was our differentiator/equalizer… Well, I guess not when you play a team like BYU that really Specializes/game plans for special teams opportunities.

Future is bright for us.

@92010Coogs Most UH fans are great. I can see where they are coming from. For you I have a different post, but I hope you savor the flavor of your sour grapes.

You do sound weak and whiney like a SDSU fan.

You had a dude spitting on people during a pandemic, Olinemen tackeling guys when the play was gone, headbutts, and you decided it was a great time to lecture BYU for being a dirty team? WTF is wrong with you?

Grow up and realize it’s football. Houston isn’t a dirty team. Mistakes happen. Aggression goes over the line
sometimes coaches will address it. Move on and enjoy the game.

Or keep throwing bombs and chewing those sour grapes.

Weak sauce.

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Very true. There are option routes in this offense, but what I witnessed last night is an offense that looked like they seen a ghost when BYU went to a zone. They need to practice more against it, and we should have kept running the ball. I honestly think we got too cute and BYU caught us napping but you have to gamble a bit to beat a team like that in your second game. It’s tuff.

It was a competitive game for 3 quarters.

Then our offense disappeared.

Can we get a DB coach who can teach the players to look for and play the ball.

The special teams coach should be history.

You say stats don’t lie?

Then let’s talk dirty teams.

In 2019 BYU averaged one more penalty per game vs Houston. BYU also averaged one more total yards penalized per game than Houston.

Therefore, Houston averaged more yards/penalty than BYU. That means more of our penalties were incidental.

Neither team is dirty. They average 42 and 43 yards penalized per game.

The BYU is dirty idea comes from the U of U who at the time and based on the stats at the time actually were the 5th dirtiest team (A&M was #1) to BYUs mid 40s.

Little Brothers accuse big brother of what they themselves are guilty of. The Yewts are like that.

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The UH DLine didn’t give ground. Watching the plays develop looked like lots of the coverages were good and Wilson zipped the ball into the perfect place.

Tune looks like he is going to be a special player. When he got time he picked BYU apart. The UH OLine blocking looked great at times.

Special teams looked good for UH last week… Gotta clean that up.

That was a crazy competitive game. I loved the stadium and I hope BYU/UH keep playing beyond the return game. Great stadium and a cool environment. I hope Houston wins out - not all for selfish reasons.

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And I will add that both teams stayed on the field to wish each other well, for much longer than most other games Ive seen in recent memory. There was clearly a mutual admiration vibe after the game. I saw plenty of smiles and Elbow bumps (no handshakes).
I thought that was a great way to end it.

Good luck to BYU the rest of the way, and see y’all next year at your crib.:+1::smiley:

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Seeing so much blue in our own stadium, losing a winnable game to tricks and gadgets, and hearing “B…Y…U” made me sick to my stomach.

Not only that the tickets are overpriced this year. I’ll be watching from home for the rest of the year. If they had won, I could justify the expense.

Parting thoughts:

  • It was a fun game to watch. Eye-rolling and difficult at times, no matter which Cougars you were pulling for, but fun.
  • Houston was as good as advertised. We (BYU) had an advantage in that it was BYU’s fifth game and Houston’s second. I think that difference proved decisive.
  • My own highly biased belief is that Houston played closer to their potential than BYU did to theirs. I mean that as a compliment to Houston’s players and staff, and not in any backhanded way. I do believe that BYU is legit top 25 based on talent and execution, but performance definitely remains to be seen. A second-quarter wheels-coming-off performance like BYU had yesterday would be insurmountable against an elite team. Fortunately for us, Houston is merely good this year rather than elite. Next year might be a different story. The ghost of David Klingler haunts me…
  • If UH had played a perfect game, they would have won. As a BYU fan, I was frustrated by my team’s many mistakes. Having said that, credit BYU with winning the game. They gutted out a tough win against a worthy opponent. Houston didn’t hand the game to the blue Cougs, no matter how much it might have seemed that way to UH fans.
  • We missed Tonga on defense. Big-time. I knew we would miss him, but I didn’t know how much. At noseguard, we have a big dropoff between 1 and 2.
  • There are legitimate criticisms of BYU. There are also stupid, meaningless criticisms of BYU leveled by meatheaded opposing fans and even coaches. Top among the Stupid Criticisms list is the ever-popular “BYU Has An Unfair Advantage By Playing Older, Mature, Grown Men Who Have Served Two-Year Missions Against Our Poor Young Boys.”

In a word, bullcrap. For all fans of any fanbase (coaches, too!) who mindlessly parrot this brain-dead complaint, consider: If two years of missionary service really did give BYU a substantial advantage in play, then every college football team in the nation would be sending their new recruits to dig wells in Africa for two years (and at the player’s own expense, to boot). “Don’t worry about training, guys! Just do some pushups every day! No problem! And don’t worry about diet and parasites! Those minor things aren’t nearly as big a deal as everyone says!”

  • I’ve noticed occasional mention on this board of the Ute-inspired claim that BYU is a “dirty team”. This is another of those Stupid Criticisms, though it’s not completely baseless—BYU has historically had its fair share of personal fouls and Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalties. This is a point of embarrassment for many BYU fans, given the religious background and proclivities of the school and its fanbase. But it’s hardly a disproportionally outrageous number. According to this spreadsheet, the BYU Cougars were 89th-worst out of 125 CFB teams in the decade from 2003-2012. That makes them #37 in the “dirtiness” rating, a commanding four places ahead of—you guessed it—the Houston Cougars.
  • The refs were bad. I’ve seen worse, but I hope not to see worse this season. I’m sure some Red Coog fans will blame the loss on the refs, as some Blue Coug fans would likely have done had we not had a great fourth quarter. But both groups are wrong. The referees did not decide the outcome of the game. They merely made it take about three hours longer to determine than it would have been without a thousand interminable video reviews.
  • Your QB looked great. Anyone who can’t see and admit that deserves to be ignored. And on the whole, your coaches had a solid game plan. Kudos to them.
  • I look forward to next year in Provo!
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Thanks. Your team was great to watch. Good luck this season.

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Some coaches may be gone like special teams and dbs

We did embarrass ourselves by losing our composure. I knew we were done for when Porter head-butted the kid that rocked him. BTW, I was taught to tackle by planting my face mask between the numbers on the jersey of the ball carrier. That looked to me what the BYU kid did. I will never agree that hitting like that is targeting. The hit was late, however, and BYU should have been flagged for that. Still, Porter’s behavior was a shock to me and signaled that we were cooked. And, as if things weren’t already a struggle for us at that point, a cheap shot like a head-butt only serves to fire up the opponent.

We played well, but lost our composure in the 4th quarter. BYU won the beginning and end of the game. We won the middle.

If the coaches can fix the composure problem we’ll be fine. If they can’t, we’ll struggle. Everyone saw us lose it and they’ll be doing stuff the rest of the year to get Paul, Porter , and really anyone, to do something stupid.

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13 yard punt did not help.

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