A pet peeve of mine from 2005 - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

TheSizzle36 · 07-28-2006, 08:24 PM

It is a very common misconception that BYU v. BC was a close game in 2005. It was not.

Were Boston College and BYU to have played later on in the season, guess what... BC still would have won, IMO, but in a completely different fashion.

People like to point a finger at Anae for that game for not attacking downfield more or for not 'opening up' the playbook. That is not true. Far from it. Boston College came out and played in a way that they were going to make BYU beat them with the underneath stuff, 3 to 4 yards a play. They felt like BYU wasn't consistent enough to complete 80% of those plays, and that likely a drive would stall resulting in either a FG or a punt. And guess what happened? BYU DID stall most of the time, and BC ended up winning a game that they COMPLETELY dominated IMO.

BYU scored 3 points... anybody remember how? It wasn't on any long sustained scoring drives... Brian Kehl blocked a punt that BYU recovered deep in BC territory for a field goal.

BYU's inability to run the ball also killed them in this game. I believe that Beck had something like 60 passes attempted and BYU had like 10 running plays or so. BC wanted to control the clock, which they did nicely, and limit BYU's opportunities.

There were only a few times that Boston College attacked downfield in that game. In fact, I believe that the only time they did was right before the half after a blocked BYU FG attempt, when they were easily able to beat BYU's secondary and set up a FG with 3 seconds left in the first half.

BC, who didn't have much film of BYU to work with (with their new offense), took away BYU's biggest known offensive weapon, the deep ball to Watkins (believe me, they saw enough of Watkins going deep in 2004 to know they needed to take that away) and took the attitude we'll make you beat us, because we think that you'll beat yourselves. Hence, they played the game keeping the cougar receivers in front of them and gave up the completions underneath and to the backs for 3 or 4 yards a play, but avoided any big play deep balls.

I was very frustrated with the teams performance in the BC game. It was NOT very close, IMO. Were the game played later in the year, I'm fairly confident that BYU would have gotten a few more scores, but I think that BC would have also attacked downfield more often and would have put up more points as well. It was a great game plan by BC's coach. This year in Boston should be an interesting matchup, although BC shouldn't be as tough of an opponent this season as they were last year.

07-28-2006, 08:24 PM	#1
TheSizzle36 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 3,786	A pet peeve of mine from 2005 It is a very common misconception that BYU v. BC was a close game in 2005. It was not. Were Boston College and BYU to have played later on in the season, guess what... BC still would have won, IMO, but in a completely different fashion. People like to point a finger at Anae for that game for not attacking downfield more or for not 'opening up' the playbook. That is not true. Far from it. Boston College came out and played in a way that they were going to make BYU beat them with the underneath stuff, 3 to 4 yards a play. They felt like BYU wasn't consistent enough to complete 80% of those plays, and that likely a drive would stall resulting in either a FG or a punt. And guess what happened? BYU DID stall most of the time, and BC ended up winning a game that they COMPLETELY dominated IMO. BYU scored 3 points... anybody remember how? It wasn't on any long sustained scoring drives... Brian Kehl blocked a punt that BYU recovered deep in BC territory for a field goal. BYU's inability to run the ball also killed them in this game. I believe that Beck had something like 60 passes attempted and BYU had like 10 running plays or so. BC wanted to control the clock, which they did nicely, and limit BYU's opportunities. There were only a few times that Boston College attacked downfield in that game. In fact, I believe that the only time they did was right before the half after a blocked BYU FG attempt, when they were easily able to beat BYU's secondary and set up a FG with 3 seconds left in the first half. BC, who didn't have much film of BYU to work with (with their new offense), took away BYU's biggest known offensive weapon, the deep ball to Watkins (believe me, they saw enough of Watkins going deep in 2004 to know they needed to take that away) and took the attitude we'll make you beat us, because we think that you'll beat yourselves. Hence, they played the game keeping the cougar receivers in front of them and gave up the completions underneath and to the backs for 3 or 4 yards a play, but avoided any big play deep balls. I was very frustrated with the teams performance in the BC game. It was NOT very close, IMO. Were the game played later in the year, I'm fairly confident that BYU would have gotten a few more scores, but I think that BC would have also attacked downfield more often and would have put up more points as well. It was a great game plan by BC's coach. This year in Boston should be an interesting matchup, although BC shouldn't be as tough of an opponent this season as they were last year.