Are You Ready?: B.Y.U. at Ole Miss. Hotty Toddy!

[San Juan Sun]

Not sure how you make this calculation. JJ was crucial, Kariya was... who we thought he was. JJ led the team in passes caught and rushing yards and had a solid 4.7 YPC. Kariya averaged 3.2 YPC and whiffed some key blocks. I appreciate what BK does but I'm not sure how you don't give JJ more props.

JJ is a decent change of pace back, who played well in key spots. At other times, he didn't play so well (i.e. not being ready for at least two heaps passes). All in all he was pretty good, but he didn't dominate the game. In other words, he is exactly who we thought he was. Kariya played better in the second half, which I thought was more crucial to the win.

[Blueintheface]

Not sure how you make this calculation. JJ was crucial, Kariya was... who we thought he was. JJ led the team in passes caught and rushing yards and had a solid 4.7 YPC. Kariya averaged 3.2 YPC and whiffed some key blocks. I appreciate what BK does but I'm not sure how you don't give JJ more props.

JJ danced on 2nd and 4 instead of putting his head down for the first and on the next play on 3rd and 1 BK went for 10. Just saying, he is who he is but sometimes a sledgehammer is what you need.

[All-American]

Hah hah funny Utes - people are actually calling "luck" in this thing?

BYU 20 - 13 on first downs
BYU 306 - 203 on total yards
BYU 34:37 - 25:23 on possession

Ole Miss got more than half its points on a pick 6 on which fully four BYU players whiffed tackles and BYU repeatedly shot itself in the foot in Ole Miss territory.

The luck equation goes 70-30 in Ole Miss's favor for this game.

BYU had no business losing this game. I only believe the "we stopped ourselves" line so far; Ole Miss gets credit for causing BYU's frustrations. That said, I don't think you can argue that the better team didn't win today.

[All-American]

Special Teams - Mixed bag. A few nice returns by Falslev. Missed a FG and gave up a 45 yard return. C+

Don't forget the shanked 11 yard punt.

I think C+ is too kind. The one special teams play that was all that positive (besides made extra points, I guess) was the tackle on the last kickoff.

[All-American]

13 points: the largest deficit overcome in the Bronco Mendenhall era.

Doesn't seem that much, doesn't it?

[Hsaru]

It was interesting how Sampson was in late in the 4th quarter in some key situations, he might be taking a lot of time from Eason as we go on. Preston Hadley seemed like he'll be able to get the job done this year.

[Shaka]

Need post game reports from The Grove.

[Sizzle]

My take:

Heaps - I'm not as down on him as some are. The pix 6 hurt, but he made the right read, he just threw it a bit late. His stats were decent, and the offense moved the ball with some consistency between the 20s. Obviously, he's got to get better by next saturday, but I have faith in Heaps.C

I probably give Heaps a slightly better grade than a C, though it is more like a C+ or a B-. Yes, he missed on some throws. But what I really liked about Heaps was the way he bounced back from the INT. Heaps seems like he plays at his best when he's a little chippy. The TD throw to Apo was a nice ball, and he had a few others passes that were right where they needed to be when it counted. The INT was a good defensive call and a great play by the safety who showed he was drifting across the field only to jump the route. The ball was a bit underthrown otherwise it could have been 6. Heaps also led them down the field and converted on a lot of 3rd downs. My biggest issues with Heaps were the way he non-chalantly went after the DB on the Pick 6 return, how he seemed a bit too casual on a couple of the shotgun snaps, and the slight accuracy issues. Hopefully now that the first game is out of the way, they'll be ready to play next week against Texas.

RBs - Kariya played the best (missed two blitzes though), JJ is who we thought he was, Juice was hurt. B

I only remember one Kariya missed blitz. The sack on the first drive you can't fault Kariya when his job is the play fake and you've got a corner coming from the opposite edge. It was a solid defensive play call.

I like JJ. He's a solid player. I like the lineup with Juice and JJ in at the same time, especially with the ability to move JJ to the slot. He's just as dangerous catching the ball as he is running it. The backs also had a few good conversions. I'd probably give them a B+.

Michael Alisa also deserves a shout out here with a nice catch and run.

TEs - Holt and Wilson were active particpiants this year, not corpses like last year. B-

B- is probably right. A few nice catches on some play action. But they didn't make a huge impact either IMO. It seemed like there was a lot of 4 Wr sets though.

WRs - Sparingly used, but Apo came through when it mattered. Falslev, McKay, and Hoffman all had clutch catches extending drives. Obviously Ole Miss was trying to take these guys out of the equation.B-

I would probably give them a B- or a B. They didn't overwhelm and didn't make many "plays" but they didn't drop any passes either. I'd probably agree with the B- grade because I don't think they did a good enough job of getting open.

O Line - Played well for the most part. Several shotgun snaps were sketchy. B

I give them a B-, mostly because of a few penalties that really put the offense in a tough spot. They did a good job though protecting Heaps as I think the only time he was really pressured was on blitzes from the corner which is usually a back pick up.

Offensive coaches - It looked like Doman's first game. We got the win, which is what matters most. I liked the bootlegs and playaction that Doman incorporated. I didn't like the lack of execution in the 1st half. I was concerned that BYU didn't pick up the tempo in the early 4th quarter, very nonchalant, but Van Noy saved their bacon. C

I didn't take exception with Doman's play calling as much as most. I felt like there were a few times that he tried to be aggressive when taking what the D was giving them would have likely been a better approach, but he did a good job mixing in the play action and bootlegs and when Jake was struggling, I thought he did a good job calling plays to help him get going. I definitely agree with the tempo issues though. I think I'd give Doman a high B-.

D Line - Did their jobs really well. Nice rotation of players, who did a good job neutralizing Ole Missus large line. A-

They did a good job controlling the line of scrimmage I felt like and let the backers do their job. I would give them a solid A.

LBs - Pendleton, KVN, and Kavienga played great. Hadley, Tree, and even Wagner were also solid. This unit won the game. A

KVN and Pendelton IMO were the two MVPs of the game for BYU. Their speed helped negate the alleged speed of Ole Miss as they were able to keep them from getting to the corner. Good pressure on the QB as well when they rushed forced a lot of bad throws. It seemed like one of the two of them was in on almost every play. May be the two most athletically gifted linebackers to play at BYU together.

DBs - Not much of a test from a raw Rebel passing game, and they struggled a bit. Decent in run support though. Tough to say how good they were because they were not really tested too much. Saved by Ole Miss dropping a TD, where was the safety on that play? C+

Corby Eason gets a D, Daniel Sorenseon gets an A-. Hadley and Sampson both played fairly well and Uale made a few plays. I guess a C+ is probably right. I'm excited about Sorenson. He will be a good one.

D Coaches - Great game by Bronco and company. Did not manufacture much pressure on QBs until the second half. Solid gameplan limiting Ole Miss run game. B+

Given that Ole Miss offensively was only able to put up 6 points, three of which came thanks to a nice punt return, I think I have to give the D coaches an A. They seemed prepared and played assignment sound football. The only real issue IMO was Eason seemed to play a little soft in zone and Ole Miss was able to attack him. Although they did look to fix that by putting in Hadley and Sampson, so good on the coaches.

Special Teams - Mixed bag. A few nice returns by Falslev. Missed a FG and gave up a 45 yard return. C+

A C+ here is probably generous. Sorenson missed a FG that he should have made. Stephenson had an 11-yard punt that would have led directly to points were it not for the forced fumble for BYU. They also gave up the big return as you mentioned. Stephenson did have a few nice punts later on in the game, but that 11-yarder was just awful.

I think I give them a C-.

Bottom line: BYU won, which is all that matters. Needs to improve in most areas to beat texas next week, but maybe this was just a first game rust thing. 1-0

I am hoping that they can shake off the rust for next week. Just cleaning up a few miscues here and there and they should be in good shape. I felt like BYU was a much better team than Ole Miss, a team who will probably be lucky to win 5 games this year. However, even playing a game well below what I think they are capable of, BYU still found a way to come back from down 13 on the road in the 4th quarter to an SEC team. This really was one of the "toss up" games for BYU this year, so it is nice to get it out of the way. I've got a feeling they'll need to step things up significantly though next week in order to beat Texas.

[Viking]

Need post game reports from The Grove.

They are busy drinking Pimm's cups.

[LiveCoug]

Roller coaster of a game. Love me some KVN! Heaps looked way better in the 2nd half. I think he will be just fine next week.

[DrumNFeather]

Initial thoughts:

Heaps - I'm not as down on him as some are. The pix 6 hurt, but he made the right read, he just threw it a bit late. His stats were decent, and the offense moved the ball with some consistency between the 20s. Obviously, he's got to get better by next saturday, but I have faith in Heaps.C

I don't get the sense that anyone is truly down on Heaps...in fact, quite the opposite. Ever since he commited to the Y, fans have gone all in on him and so they're going to defend him at all costs regardless of the situation, which isn't negative or a bad thing...if he's your guy, he's your guy and you should push all your chips in on him.

He's still just a sophomore, so he's going to make some stupid mistakes, but he's got an incredible amount of poise and responded well after the INT despite looking really rattled right afterward. If he was, he didn't play like it.

[doctorcoug]

My thoughts:

The grove was fascinating. Seeing all the tailgating with directv and food was just unreal.

The fans were extraordinarily hospitable. Everybody was "hello sir". I did see a mom who had mustard thrown all over her, but there are always douchebags at every venue.

I thought it very interesting the preppy mentality of the students. There were a number of women wearing very formal dresses.

There was an old guy that said in thick drawl, "Lord, where did your fans all come from? How many flights did y'all have to charter?"

I loved the free beer for BYU fans and there were partakers.

The stadium was gorgeous. I thought the turf was causing problems for our team.

I didn't see which BYU player went down with a concussion, but there was a life flight helicopter that left about ten minutes later. Lots of questions in my mind.

Lots of Utah plates. I met people from Delaware, Georgia, Cali, and Oregon.

Cell coverage sucked.

The weather was very hot, but not nearly what it could have been.

It was electric inside the stadium after the fumble.

The Sampson no call was a close one for us. That was almost bad.

It was a lot of fun, except my buddy forgot the tickets and we had to show them a scanned image of the tickets and beg them to print a new set for us.

[jay santos]

My initial take:

Heaps: maybe we thought he made more progress last year than he really did. I'm slightly concerned.

OL: very good

Offensive threats: average for a BYU team, below average for a top 25 team, RB's suck, TE's not much, WR's have some potential but not much there right now

Run defense: typically for a Bronco team will be very good

Pass defense: might struggle against a good QB

overall: hopefully we make a lot of progress fast or this season is not going to live up to expectations

[bluegoose]

I know I was pretty nit-picky about Anae's playcalling so I'd be interested to know what you guys thought was so bad about Doman's calls today (other than the end-of-half short throws).

I felt like those short passes were not so much about trying to score, but rather just giving Jake and his receivers a chance to run some real-time plays. I think that he converted all of those throws and Apo made his first reception during that drive. It was a good confidence booster for the offense and it seemed to pay off early in the third quarter.

[pellegrino]

I know I was pretty nit-picky about Anae's playcalling so I'd be interested to know what you guys thought was so bad about Doman's calls today (other than the end-of-half short throws).

I thought he did a pretty goodjob, and I love that he incorporates some constraint plays, which is something Anae wasn't very good at (read: basically refused to do).

I think Doman did a decent job. It would have looked better for him if his QB could have executed better in the 1st half.

I thought he did a good job of taking what the defense was giving him. I wasn't frustrated with the play calling.

There was one play that was confusing. I'll admit ignorance, but I don't understand the purpose behind a three step drop and then throwing it to the slot receiver on an out pattern to the strong side of the field. It just didn't seem effective, it's an extremely difficult throw and catch to make and each time (I counted it twice) the LB was all over it and we were lucky to get a yard. IMO three step drops are most effective with a quick slant or something over the middle. I've never been a fan of throwing the ball across the field.