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Until the BYU Cougars can get a grip on their turnover troubles in big games, their stays among the nation's elite will be short-lived.
Saturday night's five turnover performance in a 54-28 loss to Florida State was just the latest sloppy outing in a marquee matchup.
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Since the start of the 2007 season, BYU has lost only six games, but in those six losses, BYU has turned the ball over 25 times, to only six for the opposition. Dating back to the start of the Bronco Mendenhall era, BYU has 41 turnovers in 14 losses, compared to only 15 for the opposition.
In Max Hall's six losses, he has thrown 14 interceptions, to only two for the opposition.
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Through only three games this season, BYU now has ten turnovers, and is -4 in turnover margin. Only three teams nationally have more turnovers than the Cougars.
Conversely, BYU's next opponent (Colorado State) has ten takeaways in three games--only two teams nationally have more. The Rams are tied for second in turnover margin; BYU is tied for 104th.
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Since improving to 6-0 midway through last season, BYU has played five so-called "big games": at TCU, at Utah, v. Arizona, v. Oklahoma and v. Florida State. In those five games, BYU has 22 turnovers; the opponents only six. Any surprise BYU is 1-4 in those five games?
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Good teams can survive turnovers and win; indeed, BYU is actually a better-than-should-be-expected 4-4 when turning it over four times or more since the start of the Mendenhall era. But the best teams don't put themselves behind the eight-ball as often as the Cougars seem to do with consistent carelessness.
Against Florida State, the tone-setter was O'Neill Chambers' first-quarter fumble, his second cough-up in traffic on a completed screen pass (a similar miscue versus OU negated a sure touchdown).
The most crucial turnovers sandwiched halftime--a tough-to-understand fumble by DL Jan Jorgensen on a squib kick, followed by the "pick six" by FSU's Greg Reid that could easily have been called pass interference.
Either way, once BYU gave up the ball in consecutive possessions on a night the Seminoles were never stopped, the die was cast.
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The new college football polls are out, and BYU predictably makes a free-fall. The Cougars are now 19th (AP) and 20th (Coaches'), down 12 and 11 spots respectively--precisely mirroring their jumps after beating Oklahoma.
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Florida State re-enters the polls (18th and 25th), while Utah drops out. Four MWC teams are receiving votes, with ranked TCU and BYU joined by the Utes and 3-0 Colorado State--BYU's opponent next Saturday.
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BYU has not yet released any official word, but it doesn't look good for starting nose tackle Russell Tialavea. He was injured on a "cheap shot" chop block (no flag on the play), as FSU right guard David Spurlock dove at Tialavea's knee from behind, while RT was engaged with the Seminoles' center.
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The first six times Florida State's offense had the football last night:
Touchdown
Touchdown
Touchdown
Touchdown
Field Goal (after Jorgensen fumble w :17 remaining in 2nd qtr)
Touchdown
--
Including FSU's interception return touchdown, the Seminoles scored the first seven times they possessed the ball (6 tds, 1 fg).
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Last night's combined 1st and 4th quarter possession times:
FSU 23:41
BYU: 6:19
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After being almost pathologically efficient on first-drives and in first-quarters in recent seasons, the BYU offense is struggling to get out of the gates this season. The Cougars have only three points in the first quarter thus far. Bears noting BYU has only had eight first-quarter possessions in three games.
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If you had told me BYU would run for 100+ yards, throw for 365, average nine yards a play, make 50% of its third-down conversions, and punt only once with no kicking errors and only three penalties, I would have liked BYU's chances to win the game.
Of course, I didn't take into account the possibility that the Seminoles would absolutely dominate BYU on the 'Noles offensive line of scrimmage, make practically zero execution errors and possess the ball for two-thirds of the game.
FSU ran 77 plays to only 53 for BYU, almost an exact flip-flop of the scenario the Cougar coaches expected to play out. The Seminoles huddled but played at a brisk tempo, making moot any anticipated altitude-related issues.
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Hand it to Bobby Bowden--he played possum to a "T." With Bowden and his coaches and players giving the Cougars all the credit in the world during the week, the crafty veteran felt he had the Cougars right where he wanted them. Paraphrasing Bowden's postgame comments on KSL, he knew the Cougars were riding high and poised for a fall, and he knew he had the kind of athletes to cause BYU trouble.
Bowden felt he had a motivated team anxious to make a statement, while Bronco Mendenhall confirmed that the 'Noles were "hungrier" and essentially had more desire to win the game.
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In a way, BYU found out what Oklahoma discovered on September 5th. If you don't respect a quality opponent and expect that opponent to play its best and most motivated football against you, you can and likely will be beat.
It's fair to say that part of BYU's gameplan was in part predicated on a belief that Florida State would be "undisciplined" and unable to execute proficiently enough for long stretches of time. In short, BYU expected the Seminoles to mess up; and when they didn't, the Cougars were caught off-guard. At that point, BYU was suddenly in a shoot-out, and playing catch-up led to the Cougars tightening up, and anxiety was followed by errors in execution.
It's about more than turnovers, but it's time to acknowledge that TCU (2008), Utah (2008) and Florida State (2009) in particular have proven it's dangerous to anticipate that a team will make mistakes. Those three teams combined for one giveaway against BYU (compared to 15 giveaways by the Cougars). Perhaps its time to assume instead that teams facing BYU (underdogs, especially) will play their best and cleanest games against the Cougars, and start taking a closer look at why it is BYU players are the ones making the lion's share of miscues in important games.
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It's early in the season, so you see some wild stat swings, like this one: BYU went from 19th nationally in third down conversion defense last week, to 105th this week. That's what allowing 12 of 15 FSU third down conversions will do for you.
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For the first time since Max Hall and Harvey Unga first lined up in same backfield (2007 season opener v. Arizona), Unga played a game and did not catch a pass. Unga's streak of consecutive games with at least one reception ends at 27 (it was the 9th longest current streak nationally). Dennis Pitta had five receptions against FSU, extending his streak to 33 games--the 4th longest streak nationally, and four games away from tying the BYU record of 38, held by Glen Kozlowski.
Pitta is three catches away from tying Hall of Famer Gordon Hudson (honored at halftime last night) for most receptions by a BYU tight end. Hudson ended his career with 178 grabs--Pitta has 175. Pitta is also only 40 catches from tying Austin Collie's alltime BYU receptions record of 215.
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With two touchdown passes against the Seminoles, Max Hall passed John Walsh and Robbie Bosco, who were tied for fourth alltime in BYU's career touchdown pass tally. With 67 passing tds, Hall is now 4th, behind Ty Detmer (121), Jim McMahon (84) and John Beck (79).
Hall also passed Steve Young and moved into 4th on BYU's alltime total offense list; with 8,880 yards, he trails only Detmer (14,665), Beck (11,059) and McMahon (9,723).
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