Well Cougar fans, we (barely) survived Bye #1 and here we are the day before our Cougars head to Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium for our vengeance match against ECU. (No we haven’t forgotten) I wanted to take this opportunity to post a stat projection for the game (bear in mind, this is very early season but I’ll get into that later). So without further ado, here it is:
Now you may be looking at this and say to yourself, “Steven, why do your stats think BYU is going to have no problem with this game? You think they’re going to win by 2 scores when Vegas has the betting lines on this game below 7 points?”
And to that, I’d say “These stats are still very early season and in that vein, very likely to be volatile for the first few games as more data points come in. BYU’s only data point so far, due to me essentially throwing away all drives/plays that take place against FCS opponents and take place during garbage time, is against Stanford.”
However, watching Stanford play against Boston College and putting up 30 points in a conference matchup, I feel much more comfortable in standing by these early season numbers, especially on the defensive side. But, I do think a healthy bit of skepticism is in order as it is apparent that Stanford likely isn’t going to be conference contender in the ACC.
BYU’s Offense
I’m not going to spend a lot of time discussing BYU’s offense, mostly due to the fact that I haven’t seen enough of Bear Bachmeier to speculate one way or the other if his stats are accurately reflected in these numbers or not. What I will say is I think there will be many Cougar fans (myself included) who will be avidly and anxiously watching the performance of this young man in his first FBS college road start.
I am confident however, that BYU will have success in moving the ball. They have already shown a great ability to move the ball and gained nearly 58% of the available yards in the game against Stanford, which is good for #24 in the country in this metric. Largely due to Bear’s lack of turnovers thus far and LJ Martin showing the performance gains he was able to achieve in the offseason.
LJ needs just 759 more yards this season in 10 more games to cross the 1,000 yard threshold (75.9 yards/game) and I have a feeling that once this game gets out of hand for ECU, we’ll see LJ cross that 100 yard threshold again in this game.
BYU’s Defense
It was extremely apparent in our first couple of games this season that DC Jay Hill is not playing around in regards to his Defense. Through 2 games, BYU is allowing just over 100 yards per game of offense and 1.5 points. I don’t care that BYU’s opponents are an FCS team that had 0 points through its first 2 games or against a Stanford team that many thought could go winless. (S/O to the Trees, I hope they win every game from here on out)
That type of defensive performance deserves to be shouted out, even if there’s a possibility our stat rankings could take a hit after this next contest in the East.
BYU’s defense has been absolutely statistically lights out so far to date, measuring out in the top 25 nationally in every single one of the metrics I track (and top 50 in the few that are not top 25). In the week leading up to the Stanford game, we heard how their game plan was going to essentially be “Run the ball down BYU’s throat” which they of course did not do.
Now that we’ve seen how they performed against a Stanford team that was determined to run the ball down our throat, I am very excited to see how a team, who would run in 00 or 01 personnel on every play if they could, fares against this defense with 2 weeks to prepare.
BYU has flexed its elite secondary to start this year picking up where they left off last season. allowing -0.037 (#4 nationally) in EPA per pass and -0.310 (#3 nationally) in EPA per rush and an overall defensive Success Rate of 26.7% (good for #3 in the country).
I’ve watched a good amount of the tape for ECU and am confident in saying their passing attack is solid and definitely fun to watch, but I don’t think they’re going to be able to overcome the mastermind that is Jay Hill. They’re going to need to find a way to keep BYU from clamping down and keeping the hands out of our ball-hungry secondary who I’m sure are champing at the bit to try to one-up our INT number from last season.
I expect to see these boys keep ECU one-dimensional, but to also make that single dimension a living nightmare. I’ll give a more stats-focused breakdown of our defense next week before conference play when we’ve got another data point added, but so far, everything we’ve seen has lived up to the hype. Let’s also not forget that Defense Travels.
BYU’s Special Teams
KPop’s Demon Hunters (I have 4 girls, trust me I am fully inundated) have been a terror on the kicking and coverage side of special teams already this year. BYU is #1 in Starting Offensive Field Position (sans FCS game/Garbage time as I mentioned before) with an Average Starting Field Position of the 45.6 yard line. Big Game Bill is back to his old self, on target to break some BYU records along the way. Things in the third area of the game are humming. We’re forcing our opponent(s) to start their drives on the 19.9 yard line for a Starting Field Position Margin of 25.7, good for #1 in the country. Penn State is sitting at #2 in this metric after playing their cupcakes at 16.8, just for fun/comparison’s sake.
This phase of the game is one area where I fully expect BYU to make their presence felt, as ECU ranks #49 in both of these metrics (offense/defense). May we see a Tiger or Hagen return TD? My gut is saying yes.
To Wrap It Up
Many people are nervous about this game, I am not one of those people, despite how good ECU is. Is that misguided? Possibly. At the end of the day, to me it really boils down to how much trust you have in this defense and special teams. I am confident that ARod can get the offense to do what it needs to in order to put points on the board. The real measure for me will be on whether or not ECU’s offense can hold their ground against Jay Hill and KPop, and I don’t personally have high hopes for anyone attempting to outplay those 2 on our schedule. After all, as I said in the CougConnect discord, my spicy take is that the defense/special teams will finish this game with more points on the board than ECU.
Follow me on X/Twitter to see more stats related charts/posts among other things or come hang out in the CougConnect Subscriber Discord and find me hanging around the #stats channel. Go Cougs!
As an aside, I wouldn’t read too much into the scary looking “passing statistics” as we’ve played 1 fewer game than many teams in the country as well as confirmed that ARod has played the passing game very close to the chest so far with Bear and we truly have yet to see what this Freshman Centaur can do.
