What happened to the Cougars in 2008?

I've thought a lot about the BYU football season since the season's depressing end. We played four quality teams this year (TCU, Air Force, Utah and Arizona) and lost to three of them. A good season? Yes. A great season? Hardly.

Jay Drew of the Salt Lake Tribune outlines some reasons here for why the Cougars seem to fade down the stretch, but I have my own three reasons.

1. Max Hall is in love with his arm. It became clear in the second half of the season that Hall was trying to squeeze in throws he had no business throwing. When good defenses tried to shut down Collie and Pitta, he was neutralized. Reed's injury hurt him, but even with Reed healthy in the Las Vegas Bowl, Hall looked mediocre.

2. The running game was not good enough. BYU was 73rd in the country in rushing, and had a mediocre 4.1 yards per carry. Though this is somewhat effected by sacks, at the end of the day, the running game was not good enough to take pressure off Hall in the big games. For example, we had just 45 yards against TCU (when you take out the sacks) on 22 carries.

Part of this was due to the 'slump' of Unga. Sometimes during the second half of the season he would dance around instead of running through people. Dude, you're bigger than most d-linemen. Knock some people over. He's not fast enough to beat people that way. I also wish Vakapuna could have remained a 2nd TB and not had to fill in at FB. I thought he actually run better this season than Unga (granted on a lot fewer carries).

3. The defense isn't very good, especially against the pass. Since 1997, our defensive back play has been poor. Either we have to play back and teams get 15 yard chunks, or we press and get killed deep. This has been a consistent problem under Mendenhall (and his predecesor). Mendenhall is supposed to be defensive coach. With the schedule we played, we should have had a top 30 defense, instead of a top 60 defense. Utah got more yards against us than they averaged against the likes of SDSU, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Do I agree with Jay Drew that the program might have plateaued? No. I think Mendenhall is the real deal, but the coaches were the ones in a slump more than anyone else. Too many mistakes, too little creativity on both sides of the ball. Hopefully the can improve the team to bring the conference championship where it belongs.