BYU took its longest road trip of the year to West Virginia and was blown up by black powder that was prepared and fired.
West Virginia defeated BYU 37-7.
It was a beating.
And at night, when BYU should be near perfect.
There was an alley fight between the two teams. WV brought grenades; BYU brought cream pies.
New Cougar quarterback Jake Reztlaff?
The boy came and played. The mystery remains what kind of game he could have had if he had been adequately protected, had a running game he could rely on, and the receivers hadn’t lost balls. His mobility proved to be a weapon for the future.
Sounds crazy given the score, but I thought Retzlaff was great.
— Mark Durrant (@DurrantMark) November 5, 2023
The Mountaineers’ defense had given up nearly 200 yards per game to rushing opponents this season, but BYU couldn’t find any offense to free Aidan Robbins or even protect Reztlaff, who was running for his life most of the game .
Led by Robbins’ 10 carries for 37 yards and Reztlaff’s 10 for 26 yards, BYU managed 61 yards on 21 attempts. Freshman standout LJ Martin did not play.
For the eighth time this season, BYU failed to gain 300 yards. WV won almost 600.
West Virginia manhandled BYU’s offensive line. The Cougars were knocked around, pushed backwards and to the sides, and turned into pancakes. At times, Darrell Funk’s boys looked like they were wrapped in circles until they were dizzy and stumbling into each other like drunks.
On both running and passing plays, WV consistently had a defensive lineman who was completely unblocked by one of five BYU O-linemen.
Would you rather have college?
A) Oline, who is an absolute unit athletically, but over the course of her life can’t always reach the right man in the run/pass game schemeB). undersized Olines who have insane football IQs and rarely, if ever, go to the wrong guy, but…
— Moroni Laulu-Pututau (@laulu_1) November 5, 2023
BYU’s defensive line was also damaged. While the Cougar front made several goal-line stops on fourth down against top-ranked and league-leading Texas a week ago, West Virginia’s blocking strategies, rapid-fire run attacks, pulling guards and power run-blocking strategies seemed incompetent to the Cougar defenders. getting out of sync, being late, getting addicted, being pushed and turned around.
West Virginia made BYU look like one of those Division I New Mexico contender teams of the 80s and 90s.
The Mountaineers completely dominated BYU in the trenches. Men among boys. Confident believers versus doubters and doubters. WV liked doing plays. BYU was out to get penalties, drop passes and miss blocks and tackles.
This was an embarrassing loss for BYU, Cougar players and Kalani Sitake’s staff, more so than the slap in the face at TCU a few weeks ago.
For the first time this season, BYU has lost two games in a row – both on the road.
If anything, Sitake and his staff have now taken a deep sip of Big 12 football — what it means, what it requires, what costs and what investments need to be made.
You have to give West Virginia credit. The Mountaineers were well prepared when they sniffed about bowl sniffing eligibility at home.
When the officials contributed to WV’s first goal with two weak pass interferences, you could feel how momentum was building and energy was being gained.
Didn’t we talk earlier in the week about how Big 12 leadership is enabling physical play?
The refereeing didn’t win or lose this game, but it was strange, no question, and it affected the dynamic.
Back-to-back helmet-to-helmet hits on BYU receivers Chase Roberts and Kody Epps in the first half, which sent both stars out of the game, drew no attention from the officials, but two hits on late-sliding WV quarterback Garrett Greene did a scoring drive was immediate, if not expected, and the personal fouls moved the chains 30 yards for the Mountaineers.
BYU’s Keelan Marion brought the opening kickoff of the second half back to the house with a thrilling try from the locker room, but a saved call flag to BYU’s Isaiah Bagnah about 15 yards past the play negated the touchdown.
It was such a night.
BYU killed itself in the penalty kill, as evidenced by a senior linebacker who earned a facemask penalty to extend another WV push in the Mountaineers’ big first half, 27-0.
A simple solution when frustrations lead to gifts, and BYU provided WV with many of them.
BYU’s offensive coaches know they still have a lot of work to do.
- Worst offense in decades.
- A backup QB and all sorts of injury issues loom next week.
- No running game.
- Poor blocking up front and stinking third down percentages on both sides of the line.
A great teaching aid would be to show film of how WV’s offensive linemen came out of the blocks, reached the second and third levels, and chased BYU safeties while WV’s running backs ran with reckless abandon.
It would have been nice to see more run-pass options from Retzlaff, such as Robbins’ impressive touchdown run late in the fourth when the game was almost over.
Just for fun.
Retzlaff finished his BYU debut completing 24 of 42 passes for 205 yards.
This was a poor performance by the Cougars. The blame lies with everyone, from the coach to the player. They didn’t play with urgency because eligibility and respect were at stake.
Offensively, yes, we get it.
While there were a lot of issues defensively, it wasn’t the same type of defense those guys played at Texas. Maybe WV had a lot to do with it.
WV won this game based on momentum, execution and determination.
BYU lost on all of those counts.