Grading BYU's 33-25 win over Houston

(Jeffrey D. Allred/Deseret News)


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PROVO — In their home opener, the BYU Cougars secured another win, beating the Houston Cougars 33-25 Thursday night.

The following are my grades on Thursday night's performance:

Offense: C ----------

With 523 yards of total offense, 323 of those yards on the ground, one might wonder how the grade could be so low. Turnovers. The Mitchell Juergens fumble and two Taysom Hill interceptions led to 17 Houston points and kept the red Cougars within one score in the fourth quarter from sending this game into overtime. The offense proved that out gaining your opponent by almost 200 yards doesn't mean a thing if you give the ball away.

Sloppy penalties also kept BYU off of the scoreboard and even sent freshman center Tejan Koroma to the locker room early for throwing a mindless punch at a Houston defender. Points were left on the field and a runaway win turned into a battle that likely didn't need to be so close for BYU.

Jamaal Williams and Hill combined for 299 yards on the ground, which is amazing. But as Bronco Mendenhall made reference to in his post game comments, there is plenty from the game they are going to need to work on.

Defense: C-

The minus attached to this "C" grade is for the "Hail Mary" defense that yielded a terrible touchdown at the end of the first half. Its not every day that you see a guy so wide open on a heave like that. The rest of the grade is reflective of the lack of pressure on QB John O'Korn for most of the night. O'Korn was able to complete 31 of his 53 passes for 315 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions.There were big stops at the end of the game when BYU needed it but the 25 points yielded in the win felt excessive. DB Robertson Daniel noted in his post game comments that they took their foot off the gas and made too many mistakes after starting the game with big stops.

Special Teams: B

Mendenhall was asked about the Scott Arellano attempted fourth down conversion on the fake punt that failed so miserably. He noted that it wasn't called as a fake, but that Arellano just thought he could make the play himself. Obviously, he didn't make the play. The mistake put Houston in BYU territory and while it didn't lead to Houston points, better teams will pounce.

Overall Team: C+

This really didn't feel like the type of win that a top 25 team should have had. To give the ball away three. times and never have a takeaway of your own is a recipe for disaster against better teams. When players, staff members and coaches keep saying "a win is a win" throughout post game comments, you know that there was something missing. Stats from this game are misleading and don't even reflect how sloppy the game really looked. Another double-digit penalty night for the Cougars is just another reason to feel wary of this "W". But hey, a win is a win.

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Alex Kirry

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