A look back at CSU
Well ladies and gentlemen, our #10 BYU Cougars went on the road for the first time in 2026 and got the job done. LJ Martin housed BYU’s 2nd snap of the game on a beautiful 56 yard TD run after a great 1st down play set up 2nd and 1. He completed the first quarter hat trick of TD’s and BYU led 31-7 at the half. Preston Rex’s Touchdown just into the 3rd quarter officially put the game into Garbage Time at 38-7. While the final score didn’t give us the 30 point victory we wanted to see, it’s beyond obvious that BYU could have done it if they hadn’t started pulling starters and giving needed reps to our depth pieces. It is rare for teams to get backups backups reps against FBS opponents so due to the smart call by Kalani and company, we had some guys who might have seen the field in only 1 game this year another opportunity to show what they got.
Looking at the Success Rates for both sides of the ball, the only things that really stand out is first that BYU crushed it offensively (75% success rate… are you kidding me? To put it into perspective, Ohio State, Georgia, Miami, Mississippi State, and Notre Dame are hovering around 52%-57% offensive success rate on the season). Granted this came against Colorado State, the now-ranked #137/138 team in the country in that stat. The only thing defensively that catches my eye is the 3rd down success stat, specifically on 3rd and long. Allowing 50% conversion on 3rd and long against a CSU-caliber team, is something that I would draw attention to.
But enough of that, the team has rested on their BYE week and are heading to Fort Worth to take on TCU this weekend in what will be their first conference road test of the season.
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Reminder: The stats posted here exclude garbage time plays and games against non-FBS opponents. They are opponent-adjusted and unless I say otherwise, you can assume that the stats posted here in this article follow that standard.
Explains terminology used to help make sure you understand what you are reading.
The Model is high on BYU in this matchup
Last week, our preseason model had BYU winning by just 5 points while the market had BYU as 17+ point favorites and I spent a good amount of time explaining why I felt the model was off its rocker. The model seems to have corrected itself as it tends to do as we get more data points.
My model projects BYU to win roughly 31-19, a 12 point margin and a combined scoring total of just under 50. DraftKings has BYU as a 6.5 point favorite (5.5 at open) and the total has dropped 5 points (I am assuming due to weather-related concerns that were adding uncertainty earlier in the week.)
I think both of those numbers tell us something. The market still respects TCU and doesn’t fully trust BYU yet and as we have nearly double the data points from the last time we evaluated the stats, we are getting a clearer picture of who these teams are this year. The Frogs finished 9-4 last year and, while this season hasn’t been going the way their fans had hoped, they are at home this time. Last year’s 44-13 routing in Provo is probably still very fresh on many of these players minds and I expect Sonny Dykes to have his team ready to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
So what about TCU this year? They have a defense that is excellent at getting off the field (#14 in the country on late-down success), they are allowing a Quality Drive (Eckel) just under 33% of the time to opposing offenses (good for #20 in the country, but more on that later), and they have a QB who loves to let it rip on the deep ball (to the tune of #27 in the country in explosive offensive passes).
What about BYU through their first 3 games?
To start… I don’t know how else to say it, so I’ll just call it out now. Look at all of those #1s.
BYU is currently #1 in the country in Overall Success Rate (59.4%), Rush Success (64.2%), EPA/Rush, Early down EPA, Yards/Play, Yards/Rush, 1st down Success (67.0%) and (if you have read prior articles by me, this is the one that makes me giddy) Points Per Eckel.
For anyone reading one of my articles for the first time, and Eckel is a Quality Drive. It is a drive that either results in an offensive score or one in which at some point the offense finds themselves inside of their opponent’s 40 yard line with a 1st down. Points Per Eckel is an indicator of how well an offense turns a quality drive into a TD, settles for a FG, or walks away with nothing. I have gone on record saying that in my opinion, the floor for a true CFP-caliber offense is 5 points per Eckel.
BYU is sitting pretty at 6.05 Points/Eckel on the season so far and it was this exact stat that in my season-preview I said BYU needs to make progress if they want to be considered a CFP-worthy team. So far, so good, but there is an asterisk. So far, BYU has only played Arizona (#63 nationally on defense in this metric) and Colorado State (#104), so while these are opponent-adjusted, we still need to have the expectation that it is likely to change as the caliber of defense BYU faces increases.
A 64.2% Rush Success Rate is something far beyond what BYU has done in the past and will very likely regress as the schedule gets tougher. BYU was #9 offensively in this metric in 2024 with a value of 51.1%, just to set realistic expectations. LJ Martin and Bear Bachmeier, in addition to the other skill players who have carries, are rushing enough for a successful play on nearly 2/3 carries. This is simply absurd. If the boys are able to keep this number up through conference play, they would officially be on my CFP at-large watch list.
Now here’s one stat I really want to talk about.
You may remember that in my aforementioned season preview article, I called Explosive Plays Allowed the GLARING weakness of last year’s defense. BYU gave up 109 explosive plays in 2025 (#115 nationally). Through 2/11 regular season FBS games on BYU’s schedule this year, including against a potent offense headed by Noah Fifita, BYU has allowed just 9 explosive plays. Two games is a small sample size, granted, but Arizona and CSU both wanted to throw the ball down the field as much as possible and neither could do it consistently against this BYU defense. (Keep that in mind, because the success here will be thrust into the spotlight on Saturday)
One stat you may see as a blaring red sore thumb in the Quality Category above that I am not really concerned about is the Plays Per Game ranking #134 nationally. This can be attributed almost entirely to a garbage-time artifact as only 36 of BYU’s offensive snaps against Colorado State took place inside the first 36 minutes of the game, which is as long as it took for BYU to put the game completely out of reach for CSU. I also will be keeping an eye on BYU’s late down success as mentioned above.
Tell me more about TCU
TCU is 2-2 overall and lost their only conference game this season last week to UCF in a completely head-scratching game. TCU opened the season in Dublin (seriously… why are we playing college football away from college campuses?) and lost in a 15-10 rock fight with North Carolina, thus being the next recipient of the Curse of the Irish (seriously, go look up what has happened each season to the team that has lost the Aer Lingus College Football Classic). Against UCF, TCU had 11 penalties, allowed 4 sacks, and had 3 bad turnovers (I don’t really count the fumble on the laterals at the end, but the stats do). TCU is now -1 in turnover margin on the season to date.
Glancing back up at the head to head stats above though, it looks like you can basically put TCU into 2 boxes. Firstly, they are a team with a good (but maybe not great) defense (given strength of their opponents to date). But they also had some disgusting weather/conditions in their trip overseas so I give them the benefit of the doubt. They also appear to be a team that just straight up cannot run the football.
TCU is currently averaging 2.73 yards per rush against FBS opponents. That is good for a ranking of #134 in the country. They are also #134 in EPA/rush, #120 in Rush Success (31.6%) and have had a grand total of exactly one explosive run against their three FBS foes to date, which ranks dead last in the country at #138.
This doesn’t appear to be a small-sample blip either. TCU’s offense has fallen off a cliff over the last few years since their 2022 National Runner-Up campaign in this stat. When you can’t run the ball, you can’t stay on schedule. Thus, TCU this season is #117 in 2nd down success rate (getting 70% or more of the remaining yards to the first down marker on 2nd down) and #96 overall at getting a 1st down on early downs. This makes sense, because they end up in 3rd and long frequently.
TCU has been creating Eckel Drives at a respectable rate (48.0%, good for #62 in the country) but once the Frogs find themselves in scoring territory, they are averaging just 3.33 points. Just 2 years ago, TCU finished the season at #9 in the country in this stat at 4.99. Personally, I attribute this as a side-effect of a disappearing run game. The field gets a lot smaller as you work closer to the goal line inside the 40.
So how has TCU been moving the ball this season? 2 words: Air Raid. Sonny Dykes’ teams have been one of the better explosive passing attacks for years (#11 in both 2024 and 2025) and this year doesn’t appear to be on a different trajectory. TCU already has 19 explosive passes in their 3 FBS games (#27). An extremely lopsided 95% of their explosive plays have come through the air.
Jaden Craig is 66-101 (65.3% Completions) against FBS defenses so far this year, averaging 8.7 yards per target and 12.4 yards per completion. Craig has not looked good against P4 competition though, going 45-72 (62.5%) for 485 yards with a TD:INT of 0:2 and being sacked 7 times.
Most of his volume goes short right and left, but if I were BYU’s defense, I’d be paying a lot of attention to that deep left area of the field. He hasn’t thrown an incompletion into that segment of the field yet this season. I’d imagine that BYU sticks Evan “Shmev” Johnson on that left side of the field and beg Craig to test him.
Ed Small seems to simply be “the guy” for this TCU receiving corps. 19/24 for 259 total yards and a 37% explosive rate on his grabs. He accounts for nearly 25% of targets and more than 25% of receptions for this TCU offense with Dwyer having been out, who is definitely another dude to keep an eye on. Jordan Dwyer, who returned from a foot injury to the lineup against UCF, immediately made an impact with 5 catches for 100 yards on a 16.1 yard DOT. I imagine that BYU’s secondary will be making sure they know where these two are at all times. Dwyer returned to the lineup after a tremendous year last year in which he was responsible for over 700 yards and 7 TDs.
So what do we need to see BYU do to beat TCU?
In my mind, beating TCU will boil down to 4 things:
#1 – Win Before 3rd down
BYU has proven to be one of the best teams in the country these last few seasons of not even really relying on 3rd and 4th down as much as other teams. This year so far, BYU is picking up a new 1st down on 35.2% of early-down plays and is currently the best team in the country on 1st down. TCU is #101 in 2nd down Success Rate allowed and is arguably one of the softest spots of this TCU defense. Should BYU win this game, I will imagine it’s because they rarely found themselves in 3rd and 4th down situations and if they did, they converted because they were manageable ones.
#2 – Take what TCU gives you through the air
I have spent a lot of time in the past two articles I have written talking about how BYU needs to “Run into this matchup” but this week, I actually think the matchup calls for something a bit different. TCU’s rush defense is solid, allowing 35.8% rush success and only 3.48 yards/carry, good for #37 and #31 nationally on those. Their passing defense thus far, has not been, allowing a 48.2% pass success rate (#102). UNC had a 51.9% success rate through the air against this TCU defense and UCF was successful on 60% of their dropbacks last week.
We have heard all offseason about the strides that Bear has made in his passing game and we have seen some glimpses into that so far, but I think this might be the opportunity to Bear to pull out some more of the stops and see how he cooks through the air.
I still want LJ and the run game to be the BYU Offensive Identity, but this week I think BYU might find a lot of success forcing TCU’s safeties out of the box and into coverage to get the run game going. You don’t stop being the #1 rushing offense in the country just because the opposing defense is solid against the run. If anything, iron sharpens iron. But I want to see more of what Bear can do through the air before the big matchup coming down the pipeline in two weeks (we won’t mention or talk of it any more than that here).
#3 – No cheap explosives
As I said before, 95% of TCU’s explosive plays have been passes and they have been dead-last in the country at explosive rushes. Keep it that way. Make TCU earn every yard on Saturday. Cover deep and do not let this gunslinger take the top off the defense.
#4 – Continue to finish Quality Drives
BYU is #1 in Points Per Eckel at 6.05 P/E. TCU’s offense is #118 at 3.33. Punch the ball into the endzone and keep holding TCU to field goals at best. TCU’s defense has been really good at getting off the field (something that BYU’s defense kind of struggled a bit with this season, especially during the Arizona game, but it also reared its head against CSU).
In closing
I am not personally ready to call TCU a bad team. The defense is solid and the Frogs have enough firepower in the passing game to make BYU uncomfortable for at least a quarter or two. But I do believe that this BYU offense is the real deal after watching it carve up a scrappy Arizona defense and absolutely lay the smackdown on CSU for 36 minutes before calling off the dogs. My personal feeling is that the model will be much closer to the final score than the spread this weekend. I see BYU getting out of Fort Worth with a double digit win and a lot of good ahead of their Friday showdown against ISU at LaVell next week.
I am looking forward to Saturday immensely. I hate that bye weeks mean no football from the Cougs, but everyone’s got to have one. You can find more of me on X/Twitter @m4gbit and hanging out in the CougConnect Discord. Reach out if you have questions or want to see more stats like this. Subscribe to CougConnect already and come hang out with the best community of Cougar fans on the internet.
As always, GO COUGS!
