Congrats on the third child, Jake! Way to prioritize family, not letting the season interfere as a major factor in your family planning. The most refreshing signs of this being a different BYU team is how “assignment sound” they are. Being down twice and coming back is pretty rare for BYU. Having coordinators who don’t swing for the fence after being behind is so refreshing. Doing things to take care of business is going to be there. Hopefully the consistency will also. Making tackles. Putting in extra effort on blocking down field. The little things that make the difference. That’s the next level. It’s translated in the past with Sitake’s teams winning the games they are “up” for and losing games they should win. I’ll never forget that East Carolina game last year. That’s when I started watching this Podcast. I wanted to see every move they would make to improve. And this Podcast has been awesome to give me the perspective of an Insider! Now with these Portal transfers, it’s a different culture. Elevated. Have always loved BYU teams over the years. But they haven’t always seemed “hungry.” When you’re a young married who is home from a mission and you get banged up week after week with no intent to play at the next level, how hungry are you really to win? What we see now is year 1 in the Big 12 with lots to prove and a hungrier team than ever. This is why I don’t expect the same kind of let down that we’ve seen in years past.
This feels like the game that we will need a statistical breakout. I hate to put “need X stat to win” because those are pretty much always stupid and arbitrary, but I think it will be hard to replicate the opportunistic win we had last week while not putting up numbers. My gut says this is the Kedon Slovis big numbers game if we are to win
I agree byu needs to be better on offense as a whole as I think Kansas has a better offense than Arkansas abs will need to move the ball well . With that said I think byu has a better chance to do that against Kansas than against Arkansas .
I believe the team was somewhat relieved to win against Arkansas. I believe they may feel the pressure to continue to win. But maybe they are playing like a team, like the 1984 team played. Can BYU beat Kansas? I have no doubt they can beat them. Will they? That is the question. Hard to predict. I expect the game to be a good one. Kansas has played um, lesser teams, and had a week off. They won't be as injured as I expect BYU to be. But it looks like BYU is deeper than I thought. I think if they have seen the Jayhawks videos they may be able to beat them. We can always hope.
Let down? This team hasn’t reached a level of being high enough for a let down yet. So far they have answered many questions I had coming into the season. I will be watching to see if they quit on the season like they did after the Baylor win last year. Win or lose, I want to see them play every game as hard as they played against Arkansas.
@@fringeelementsthe defense quit during the Arkansas game and went downhill from there. Holker set the precedence once he transferred after the Oregon game 😔
BYU won't have a let down. If they get beat it will be that Kansas was just a better team that day. I have a really good feeling about this week I expect BYU to not only cover the spread but to beat Kansas out right!!! its BYU BIG12 opener it's time to show the BIG12 and the nation why we have deserved to be in a P5 conference for years now!!!!!!!!! GET IT DONE COUGS!!!!!!!!
@@mindaxiom3651Seems like he is. I’ve been sooo disappointed for sooo many years after a big win. You don’t have to look far back to see the trend. I hope being in a conference changes that 😬
Most fans just want to be bowl eligible and be competitive in the first year in the big 12 so a loss to Kansas won’t be a let down. I’m fact it would be nice to steal another win
Me too, the effort last week was something to be proud of. There were also multiple instances of next level $kill on both sides of the ball. Hopefully they are not going to be underdogs much longer, and can thrive in that role as well.
Listening to Kalani Sitaki on his briefing yesterday my gut says that the Cougars will not let down. Usually we have seen it when they get a national ranking. So far that's not in play.
For some reason I believe this will be the best running game performance vs Kansas. I think the O line is starting to Gel and Kansas defense isn't that great. I'm not sure if we win yet but the 7 point under dog thing i don't agree with it. I think it should be closer than that. Especially after Kansas nearly lost to Nevada who is horrible this year.
Kansas: Win over Illinois by 11 Win over Missouri State by 31 Win over Nevada by 7 Arkansas: Win over Kent State by 22 Loss to BYU by 8 Win over W. Carolina by 43 Also, look at the box score of the Kansas-Nevada game, it really shouldn't have been that close. Kansas average 6 yards per play rushing against Illinois, 3.6 against Nevada. Arkansas averaged 3.8 yards per play rushing against Kent, and 4.5 yards per play rushing against BYU. It's not obvious to me that Arkansas is better at running the ball than Kansas. Kent and BYU probably have better run D's than Nevada and Illinois. I'd say Arkansas' running performance against Kent was better than Kansas' running game against Nevada, but Kansas' performance against Illinois feels roughly equivalent to Arkansas' rushing performance against BYU. Obviously I fixate on the run game as a general indicator of the offensive line, since an OL that opens the run game tends to be better at pass protection and is the base on which the rest of the offense is built, and a good run threat begets a good pass. The run stat is the best single stat for predicting how good a team will be going forward (other than the total score, which is inherently holistic, but also subject to fluke events and not necessarily a good predictor of future scores). No stat is perfect, obviously defenses can stack the box (SUU) or go 3 DL, but it's still the best single stat and the obvious starting point for if you were to spend half an hour actually comparing teams. Obviously you can dive deeper. Maybe you think BYU's run-D is so much better than Illinois' run-D that rushing 4.5 per play against BYU is significantly better than 6 per play against Illinois. I really can't tell which of those two rushing performances is better. Is beating Illinois by 11 a better score performance than losing to BYU by 8? I dunno, if I were to handicap BYU v. Illinois, a 19-point spread "feels" about right before doing any deep dive. You can do this with the passing performances, and flip to compare the defenses of Kansas and Arkansas if you're so inclined. I'm just sayin' they look pretty close to me. Arkansas has traditionally been better than Kansas, and certainly recruits higher-rated players, but they were missing 2 DL and a star RB against BYU. So even if Arkansas, once they're fully assembled, is say a touchdown-plus better than Kansas, the Arkansas team BYU played is not necessarily better than the Kansas team they will be playing.
Arkansas’ defense was ranked 7th in FBS going into week 3 against BYU this year. Kansas lost to Arkansas last December 53-55 in 3OT. Kansas’ defense apparently hasn’t improved by much compared to last year. Kansas’ offense appears to be better than Arkansas statistically (without Arkansas having Rocket Sanders back, who is arguably the best RB in the FBS.) The Kansas offense may be the best offense they face so far. But their defense is not even as good as Sam Houston.
The change in the D line seems to be entirely due to coaching, both technique and scheme. Its time for the o line coach to do the same for his unit. There is far more talent on the o line than the D line. Get it done fellas! 🙂
@@Jon-vi3cr its not just the pass rush. The tackles are staying in their lane and not being man handled on every play. The los is being pushed into the backfield three or four yards on many downs. I think proper leverage and hand technique is being taught and stressed across the board with the front seven. Its been fun to watch.
More likely than having a let down due to pride is the likelihood of being flat due to travel 2 weeks in a row and being banged up from such a physical game against Arkansas. While BYU is deeper than other years, this will still be a challenge as well as adjusting to playing multiple tough teams in a row.
