Spiff's Spots of Observation and Other Statistical Nonsense

[bigbluepuma]

Thanks for the analysis, Spiff. It was great.

[bigbluepuma]

Thanks for the analysis, Spiff. It was great.

[hawkwing]

I agree with pretty much all of your opinions in that post and appreciate the stats. I also thought we were going to miss that field goal.

Ditto. Special teams was my biggest concern this offseason. So glad I was wrong.

Am I the only one who believed that we'd make it? I turned to Hawkwing and said, "We got this. He's going to make it. I know it."

First time I've ever been positive at the end of a game. Maybe I'll stick with it!

I admit I was doubting Thomas. She was Believing Betty. I'm a better man for it!

[frdbtr]

I spent much of the last two weeks maligning Sitake and his attempts to play defense against RichRod. I was very pleased with how well prepared the defense was for the AZ attack. Great effort.

I've been trying to be quiet about my confidence in Sitake's ability to coach defense, I was hoping I was wrong. Having said that, and I am not trying to take anything away from Sitake, but that defense was coached by Tuiaki and Ed Lamb, if we start giving credit to the head coach after he has appointed someone the defensive coordinator we do the coaches responsible for the players performance a disservice. I am really excited about the defense. Tuiaki has proven to be able to get his guys prepared for a very difficult offense and come out looking great. I hope it continues once other teams have had a chance to see his tendencies and adjust.

[redneckjedi]

I definitely believed we were going to make that kick. Magic happens, baby, especially for kids that have just returned from missions, or who have just put in their papers.

I felt like the lack of big plays was partially a product of game plan and play calling (not a lot of passing, period, but not a lot of deep routes, either, lots of running to take advantage of matchups in the line), and partially due to dumb penalties. Williams had two huge runs either partially or fully negated due to penalties. Once we needed to move a little more quickly on the final drive, all of a sudden we get a wide-open crossing route for big yards, a run for big yards, and we moved right down the field.

My favorite plays were the TE bootleg passes. I knew Detmer would have that in his plan somewhere, since we did that plenty when he was playing, but it makes even more sense with a guy like Taysom at QB. Get the defensive line and one half of the secondary out of the equation, and make the LB choose between stopping Taysom Hill from running for a TD while allowing an easy 10 yard+ completion, or covering that TE and watch Taysom blow by you like you're stuck in concrete. Love it! And since I don't know how many defenses these days have to deal with old school concepts like naked bootlegs and big receiving TEs, hopefully it will continue to surprise them and be wide open every time.

Another observation I made was the defensive alignments we used. I was looking for a 4-3 on the first play, and what do you know, there's only 3 guys with a hand on the ground. I had some worries that we would be too vanilla on defense with a brand new staff, and give up a lot of points. We do need to work on gap discipline, though, because when you are in the true 4-3 you have one less guy there as a second line of defense, and that showed in the big runs AZ had at the end.

It seemed like there were very few times where AZ completed a pass without someone right on him. There was one where Davis was pretty shallow in zone coverage and a receiver got in behind him, and another towards the end where they had a big pass on a slant that went into a gap between defenders. Other than that, though, I was pleased with the coverage, and relative lack of big runs that you sometimes get with man coverage in a 4-3.

Finally, punt / kick coverage was awesome. I think we allowed one big return all night, and Linehan was dropping laser guided bombs all night. I mean, if we still had Danny Sorensen running down there to cover, we would have had 5 punts downed inside the 5.

[snoscythe]

Does anyone know BYU's record when wearing the "surrender-whites"?

[SpiffCoug]

Does anyone know BYU's record when wearing the "surrender-whites"?

8-7 (.533) since 2010.
3-1 (.750) at neutral locations.
3-6 (.333) on the road.
2-0 (1.000) at home.

[blue42]

I agree with pretty much all of your opinions in that post and appreciate the stats. I also thought we were going to miss that field goal.

Ditto. Special teams was my biggest concern this offseason. So glad I was wrong.

Am I the only one who believed that we'd make it? I turned to Hawkwing and said, "We got this. He's going to make it. I know it."

First time I've ever been positive at the end of a game. Maybe I'll stick with it!

I also thought he would make it. The fact the coaches thought they'd seen enough from him only in practice to send him out there in that situation speaks volumes.

My add to the observations:

First off I hope BYU doesn't issue him official cleats going forward and Oldroyd keeps wearing his neon green cleats.

Second per Desmond Howard on BYU's age hustle, even the BYU players name agree with him, you can't spell Jake's name without OLD as part of it!

Third, a little more serious, I don't know when the coaches were able to get a look at him, he only practiced the first two days of fall camp before he hurt his knee and had to have it operated on, just getting back to practice game week. He wasn't going to travel with the team but Jonny Linehan talked the coaches into taking him on the trip! Not only can the guy punt like crazy but now he has a great eye for spotting good place kickers as well.

[ABYUFAN]

I spent much of the last two weeks maligning Sitake and his attempts to play defense against RichRod. I was very pleased with how well prepared the defense was for the AZ attack. Great effort.

I've been trying to be quiet about my confidence in Sitake's ability to coach defense, I was hoping I was wrong. Having said that, and I am not trying to take anything away from Sitake, but that defense was coached by Tuiaki and Ed Lamb, if we start giving credit to the head coach after he has appointed someone the defensive coordinator we do the coaches responsible for the players performance a disservice. I am really excited about the defense. Tuiaki has proven to be able to get his guys prepared for a very difficult offense and come out looking great. I hope it continues once other teams have had a chance to see his tendencies and adjust.

I loved the quote in the game that was attributed to Sitake about calling the defense. He said words to the effect of "I have those coordinators there for a reason. However they call the game is exactly how I would have called it." What a great way to nip any second guessing of coordinators in the bud. That's a great statement from a head coach

[Cougarfan87]

I spent much of the last two weeks maligning Sitake and his attempts to play defense against RichRod. I was very pleased with how well prepared the defense was for the AZ attack. Great effort.

I've been trying to be quiet about my confidence in Sitake's ability to coach defense, I was hoping I was wrong. Having said that, and I am not trying to take anything away from Sitake, but that defense was coached by Tuiaki and Ed Lamb, if we start giving credit to the head coach after he has appointed someone the defensive coordinator we do the coaches responsible for the players performance a disservice. I am really excited about the defense. Tuiaki has proven to be able to get his guys prepared for a very difficult offense and come out looking great. I hope it continues once other teams have had a chance to see his tendencies and adjust.

I loved the quote in the game that was attributed to Sitake about calling the defense. He said words to the effect of "I have those coordinators there for a reason. However they call the game is exactly how I would have called it." What a great way to nip any second guessing of coordinators in the bud. That's a great statement from a head coach

He learned well from LaVell's example.