No Offense or anything but….

The BYU offense is bad. In fact in some cases it has even even been offensive. But something dawned on me last weekend as I was trying not to think about the score of the BYU/TCU game. Is the offense really as bad as I think it is? Is Anae really as predictable as I think he is? When BYU’s offense approaches the line of scrimmage and I can correctly predict what they are about to do almost all of the time, I assume that any opposing defensive coordianator could do the same. But perhaps I am only able to do that with such accuracy because I have watched so much footage of BYU football. So I decided that in order to be fair to Robert Anae I would try and take a look at his results this year and see if his performance merited the level of criticism that I and others have leveled at him.

The goal of the offense is to score points. Yardage, time of possession and balance between the run and pass are nice, but at the end of the day what you are trying to do is matriculate the ball down the field and into the endzone. Nobody really cares how it gets there. Just get it in there. Occasionally it’s okay to settle for a field goal. You still get three points. The most basic evaluation would consist of looking at point production. In a few minutes we’ll talk about third down conversions.

So I went to cougarstats.com and I grabbed some numbers. In the table below I am projecting this years total based on the average ppg so far this year. The 2010 ppg in the table reflects the ppg so far this season. 

Points Scored with Anae as OC
Year	First 7 Games	Total points	PPG
2010	103	176.4	14.7
2009	270	461	35.5
2008	234	445	34.2
2007	212	391	30.1
2006	253	478	36.8
2005	182	396	33

103 points so far this season has BYU ranked 115 of 120 teams.  They are doing better in other areas but rank lower than 90 in most meangingful offensive categories. This is going to be the least productive season of Anae’s tenure at the OC spot. In 2005 they started sluggish but picked up enough that by the end of the year the numbers looked decent. That is possible in 2010. However, other than the schedule easing up, I don’t see any real signs of life from the offense. It is likely too late for Anae to escape the scrutiny and criticism of a failing offense. The bottom line is that the 2010 offense is failing to get into the endzone. That 14.7 average dowe not really represent two touchdowns a game. The offense has not been in the endzone that much.  This season’s lack of production represents a statictical drop that is difficult to explain. I mean, we all know why it’s happening. QB controversy, freshman QB, receivers dropping passes, the unexpected loss of Harvey Unga, a dearth of tight ends…. But even Anae can’t really explain it. In 2007 BYU dealt with a similar changing of the guard at many key positions. They still managed to score alot of points. They got into the endzone every week and even scored 47 points in a loss at Tulsa. They averaged 30 ppg. For a little more perspective I went back to 1995. If 2010 ends as is projected here, this will be the fewest points scored by a BYU team going at least that far back. 2003 is the only year that was even close.  

Year	Total Points	Avg. PPG
2004	267	24.3
2003	196	16.3
2002	272	22.7
2001	608	46.8
2000	280	23.3
1999	332	27.7
1998	375	28.8
1997	250	22.7
1996	571	40.8
1995	307	27.9

Overall, Anae has scored alot of points. Similar to another highly criticized OC of BYU lore, Norman Chow. But if you look at Norm Chow’s numbers, his numbers were better overall.

The fact that the team is young and inexperienced is part of the problem here. Another problem is that BYU does carry a huge target on their back, even more so in this farewell tour of a season. TCU has put alot of time and effort into beating BYU. It was a focus for Air Force this year as well. But the excuse of, “We’re playing some really good teams” is only going to get Anae so far. BYU has been a great team. BYU has beat some great teams. After five seasons some of our conference opponents know Robert Anae as well as we do. The play calling is predictable. I would suggest that the youth and inexperience is being exposed by the level of predictability.

I mentioned this last week but I think it’s worth noting. The third down play calling is awful. The Cougars are 43 for 112 on third down. That’s 38 percent. The reason this hurts so bad is that BYU has faced 112 third downs this year. According to ESPN.com, only three teams have faced more. So the real problem is not third down maybe it’s second down. But if the team can’t make a play on first down it’s probably not getting into good second down situations. That means that it all starts to go south on first down. If you reread that paragraph, you’ll see that the problem is every down. The plays Anae is calling on any down are not achieving their desired results. The worst offender is the third down plays where three receivers run slant routes and none of them go past the first down marker. This allows them to stay in front of the defense, who is likely to give a little cushion on 3rd and 8, and catch the ball. The problem is that the defenders are making the tackle well in front of the marker. This leads to punting. Consistent inability to convert on third down and second down is a sign that the other team knows what you are doing and is prepared to stop it.

Anae is not equipped with a solution to this problem. His overall plan is the same as his individual gameplan. Keep doing the same things over and over and hope that something changes. The only thing that can change here is that the players will get better and eventually be able to complete some plays. The will have to overcome Anae’s strategy. It is what teams have done in the past. Only time will tell if this offense is going to be able to do that. If Jake Heaps is as good as everybody thinks he is, we should see something by the end of this year. Robert Anae and his strategy are not going to change, unless BYU changes OC’s. Everybody else on offense is going to have to make some major improvements if this team wants to win some games and add bowl game statistics to their season totals.

-Matt 

(Statistics were gathered from cougarstats.com, byucougars.com and espn.com. There were some slight discrepancies between these sights. Among those: ESPN stated that BYU is 40 of 112 on third down.)

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