BYU Cougars

BYU football: Three things we learned from Cincinnati

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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BYU football came off its bye week last week to knock off the Bearcats in Cincinnati. Here are three things we learned from BYU’s 20-3 victory.

BYU football can really kill some clock

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The BYU football team doesn’t always score with frequency. Sure, the Cougars are guilty of leaving a lot of points on the board.

But man, they can kill some clock.

BYU had three drives of 6:08 or longer, including a 16 play, 9:41 behemoth of a drive to close out the game.

Regardless of the effectiveness of the offense, those are some impressive numbers. Drives like that can demoralize an opposing team – much in the same way that BYU football was plowed by Utah in the fourth quarter of the Holy War.

Plus, it does something mentally for the offense – especially for the offensive linemen. Letting the big guys up front plow the ball for nearly 10 minutes should put them all in a zone. With any luck they’ll be able to keep that momentum going into next week.

Cougars passing defense turning a corner?

Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

BYU football’s passing defense hasn’t been great this season. Entering this game the Cougars were allowing nearly 300 yards passing per game.

Cincinnati was averaging 291 passing yards per game at home.

It seemed like Gunner Kiel was going to carve up BYU’s secondary.

But it never happened.

BYU held Kiel to 19-of-32 passing for just 199 yards with no touchdowns and one interception. Devin Gray had seven catches for 105 yards, but the Bearcats next leading receiver had just five catches for 22 yards.

Maybe the Cougars passing defense has turned a corner? Of course there’s a possibility that Cincinnati doesn’t have top-notch personnel, but statistically the Bearcats were a dangerous passing team.

BYU football has time now to fix things before going to the Poinsettia Bowl, with three straight home games coming up. I would expect to see continuous improvement in each of the next few games.

Is it time for Tanner?

Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

The first half of BYU football’s schedule was brutal. Ty Detmer and Kalani Sitake didn’t want to mess with any of the Cougars’ offensive mojo. I get it. But now, there’s nothing really to lose by throwing Tanner Mangum in the mix.

Taysom Hill‘s best days are behind him – especially as a passer. We’ve known that for awhile. But this was the first week where one would think BYU (and Hill) could get rolling. After all, Cincinnati allowed an average of 272 passing yards per game on a 60 percent completion rate.

He still couldn’t get it done. In the first half, Hill completed 12-of-20 passes for 103 yards. But 43 of those yards came on a badly underthrown flea-flicker (that Jonah Trinnaman still caught).

He came out pretty sharp in the second half, making a couple of nice throws to Colby Pearson and Mitch Juergens, but there’s just too much stagnation on this offense to justify starting him. He finished the game completing 15-of-25 passes for 130 yards and one interception.

BYU football is adept at forcing turnovers, but the offense can’t score with any sort of consistency. I know that there are a number of different elements that go into that, but there’s nothing to lose by playing Mangum now.

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To be fair, Hill did get a chance to flash his athleticism. He took 12 carries for 75 yards and a touchdown. But the coaches have gone on record saying they’re concerned about keeping him healthy. So Taysom the runner won’t make many appearances. If his athleticism is his edge, and they don’t utilize it, it seems questionable to have him continue to play over Mangum.

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