SALT LAKE CITY — BYU football is in an unfamiliar place. For the first time since 2004, it is going to miss a bowl game. That fate was decided when the Cougars lost to Fresno State on Saturday night, their eighth loss of the season.

It’s truly a shocking outcome on a season that at the very least should have seen the Cougars find a path to bowl eligibility, even if they had no predetermined bowl affiliation before the season started.

Las Vegas oddsmakers set the BYU win total at 8.5 wins before the season. Experts at Athlon Sports predicted win totals ranging between eight and 10 wins. ESPN’s Football Power Index predicted BYU to win 8.6 games this season.

Now, ESPN’s same system favors the Cougar to win two of their final three games, finishing the season with a record of 4-9. The 30 percent win percentage would be BYU’s worst since 1970, when it finished with a win percentage of just 27 percent under then-head coach Tommy Hudspeth.

While this season has yet to end, the Cougars coaching staff will spend the final three games of the season trying to cure as many of the team’s ills as possible, understanding the offseason will be a crucial stretch for the future of the program. Adding difficulty to the break, the team will likely face a quarterback battle heading into the 2018 football season.

Tanner Mangum, the starter for eight of the Cougars' 10 games so far, saw his season end prematurely with an achilles injury. Even before the injury, it appeared his future as BYU’s starter under offensive coordinator Ty Detmer was in question with how he performed this season.

After a stellar freshman season that saw Mangum pass for nearly 3,400 yards, resulting in 23 touchdowns and just 10 interceptions, his junior year ended where he threw for 1,540 yards, eight touchdowns and nine interceptions.

Though his primary backup, Beau Hoge, passed for a lower completion percentage, 48 percent compared to Mangum’s 57 percent, and also threw for fewer touchdowns (two) than interceptions (three), his ability to move the Cougars' offense with his legs could potentially offer the coaching staff a more potent offensive attack.

So how does BYU improve?

First, the team must understand what it does well and build its identity from there. While BYU’s defense hasn’t been stellar since transitioning from Bronco Mendenhall’s signature 3-4 defense to Kalani Sitake’s 4-3 scheme, it has shown promise this season against the run.

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Backup quarterbacks Beau Hoge and Joe Critchlow were listed as co-starters on the weekly depth chart, and Sitake said there is a chance redshirt candidate Kody Wilstead could play as BYU searches for a quarterback in the absence of Tanner Mangum.

According to teamrankings.com, the Cougars rank 38th in the country in yards allowed per rushing attempt at 4.0. It’s the only defensive stat where BYU ranks in the top 40 in the country. It’s a number that also passes the eye-test for Sitake’s team, where it appears to have high-level talent and depth on the defensive line and linebacker.

As was the case for Sitake during his previous stints at Oregon State and Utah as a defensive coordinator, this identity appears to have followed him to BYU. Though BYU has struggled against the pass this year, allowing opponents to complete 69 percent of its passes — ranks 125th in the nation out of 130 — stopping the run is the key starting point for any good defense, and BYU appears to have the potential to get there.

After identifying its strengths, it must find a way to at least mask, if not fix, its issues on offense. Offensively, BYU ranks among the bottom 15 teams in the country in points and yards per game, points per play, rushing play percentage, rushing attempts, rushing yards per game, yards per pass and interception throw percentage.

What sticks out most among those stats is BYU’s unwillingness to run the ball, ranking 117th in rushing play percentage and 127th in rushing attempts per game while continuing to throw the ball with poor results, ranking 119th in passing yards per attempt and 122nd in interceptions thrown per pass. Despite their poor passing numbers, the Cougars pass the ball nearly 56 percent of their plays, which ranks 14th in the country in frequency.

While BYU may be forced into passing situations more frequently than other teams, as it must attempt to gain chunk yards through the air when trailing in the majority of its games this season, its inability or unwillingness to establish a run game appears to be handicapping its offensive identity. It may also force BYU into asking too much of its defense, as it ranks 119th in the country in time of possession on the season, holding the ball for just 26 of the game’s 60 minutes.

Outside of scheme, the two areas where it can most easily improve the run game offensively is at running back and on the offensive line. While the Cougars' offense will be tasked with replacing the entire interior of its offensive line, as Tuni Kanuch, Tejan Koroma and Keyan Normal are all seniors, the Cougars should be returning offensive tackles Austin Hoyt and Thomas Shoaf, important staples for any offensive line.

Additionally, all of the team’s top nine rushers this season are juniors or younger, allowing them to return to BYU in 2018. That type of returning experience should aid BYU further develop as a rushing team, should it choose to reinvent its identity.

Other changes are likely at BYU, as college football teams will be free to add an additional coach to the staff starting in January of 2018. The program may also choose to make coaching changes, which could result in improved performance on the field.

While I wouldn’t anticipate a major reversal in fortunes for BYU in one offseason, as some issues may stem from a lack of financial resources or from a limited recruiting pool, the 2018 football season should see a reverse in fortunes on the field.

In addition to a schedule that appears to have several winnable games at home, returning talent at running back should allow for the team to build a more recognizable identity. Though questions remain at key positions offensively for the Cougars, notably at quarterback and on the offensive line, BYU fans should feel confident that they’ll see improvements next season.

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