In the steel-cable-and-plastic shade of Saturday’s BYU-Notre Dame game, where the Cougars were disrespected as inferior and accused of being age-advantaged by a couple of Irish players in the run-up, the mission — see what we did there — to be achieved remained the same for BYU. Same as it ever was on the rare occasions when these schools meet.
Only winning — no almosts allowed — can achieve such a thing.
Shaky line play too often on both sides of the ball, an inability for the defense to get off the field, a dropped pass and a bad coaching decision help(ed) BYU not one bit.
The Cougars have always wanted to measure themselves against the most famous college football program in the land, a team representing a religion, a team that’s supposed to live up to a certain set of off-the-field standards, a team that might fire up a few double-barreled prayers and swears in victory’s pursuit while slapping the living daylights out of its opponent.
Praise the football Lord Jesus.
It’s just that the prayer group from South Bend has been much better at it than the one from Provo. You know the history, what with Notre Dame’s 11 national championships and seven Heisman winners. BYU has one and one. Head to head, the Irish led the series, 6-2. In the here and now in Las Vegas, the Cougars had one more chance to fire up a few additional Hail Marys while putting a small chunk of lead on its side of the scale.
And … no, history repeated itself, confirmed this time in the form of a 28-20 ND win.
“It wasn’t the result we were hoping for or planned on,” Kalani Sitake said afterward. “… Things didn’t go well in all our phases.”
It didn’t matter that the Irish were a mere 2-2 and BYU was higher ranked. It didn’t matter that Knute Rockne wasn’t coming out of the tunnel to coach the Irish and the Four Horsemen weren’t riding. There wasn’t even a blue-gray October sky draped across the heavens, at least not in sight, since the game was being played under that translucent plastic roof at Allegiant Stadium.
This much became clear in this game: Notre Dame really is a better, faster, more physical football team than BYU. Not that the Cougars are lousy, they fought back in this game honorably after falling substantially behind through a couple of quarters. But the Irish possessed the ball for more than 40 minutes, BYU for less than 20.
There was little the Cougars could do to alter that discrepancy.
Just as was so famously written by Grantland Rice so many years ago, when Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death, had their way against Army’s defense, the same could be said here against BYU’s.
“… The bewildering speed and power of the [Notre Dame] backs slashed along for eight, 10, 15 yards on play after play … carried by backs who were as hard to drag down as … buffaloes,” Rice wrote in his famous report.
Maybe he could see ahead 98 years.
All told, on Saturday, BYU gained 276 yards, Notre Dame 496, Notre Dame had 24 first downs, BYU 13. Notre Dame had more passing yards and more rushing yards by substantial margins.
BYU struggled with its pass game early, Jaren Hall starting the game with an interception on the first play, giving the Irish the ball in BYU territory. From there, Notre Dame ran the ball straight over and through the Cougars’ defense. And that ability knocked BYU off balance, jumping all over creation in an attempt to disrupt what was hitting them.
It didn’t work, not enough.
Instead, Notre Dame was effective, all around.
Hall simply couldn’t keep up, even as he stirred a second-half charge that attempted to overcome a 25-6 deficit, closing that margin to 12, then to five, but that effort ultimately failed.
“I don’t think he was 100 percent,” Sitake said of his QB. “He definitely was banged up.”
Two key moments sealed BYU’s fate.
The first came with the Cougars down by five, moving the ball across the field, facing a critical third-and-7. Hall flipped a pass that would have kept the drive alive to an open Puka Nacua, supposedly the Cougars best receiver. It was a throw maybe your grandmother could have caught, but, instead, Nacua allowed the ball to fall to the turf.
Was he 100 percent? I do not know.
A second moment came late on a BYU drive that could have tied the score with a TD and 2-point conversion, the Cougars taking the ball with 6:07 remaining and moving to the Notre Dame 27-yard line, where that march stalled, forcing a fourth-and-1.
That’s when, on what had become the most important play of the game, the Cougars unimaginatively and ineffectively handed the ball to running back Lopini Katoa, who was absolutely stoned in place for no gain. What? Who doesn’t respect BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick? Only a moron. But that was a miserable play-call, especially with a mobile quarterback like Hall handling the ball.
“Disheartening … frustrating … disappointing,” Sitake called it.
Game over.
Hall threw for only 120 yards. In contrast, it was Notre Dame quarterback Drew Pyne who looked more the potential NFL prospect, shredding the back end of BYU’s defense, hitting on three TD passes, completing 22 of 28 passes for 262 yards, 11 of those throws going to majorly talented tight end Michael Mayer, who gained 118 receiving yards, with two touchdowns.
It might have helped had BYU been able to put more pressure on Pyne, but the lack of it enabled the heretofore unproven quarterback to get comfortable finding open receivers. When he wasn’t preoccupied with that, two of Notre Dame’s running backs — Audric Estime and Logan Diggs — were busy averaging 6.9 and 5.5 yards per carry.
Even though the Cougars narrowed the margin in the fourth quarter, by then the aforementioned statement made by one Notre Dame player beforehand — that the Irish had superior athletes in their program — had been confirmed.
That said, a BYU skill player commanding more attention moving forward was and is Kody Epps, who steadily is ascending. He had 100 receiving yards, 44 of them after the catch, and two touchdowns.
“We couldn’t get things going,” said Sitake. “… Our defense was on the field quite a bit, too much. And so, got to get some things going, We’ve got to score more points, get more stops. ‚,, We’ve got to get better.”
He added: “We’re not playing the kind of football we want.”
Question is: Can they?
“I got to get our guys to play better,” he said.
Question is: Can he?
“It’s doable,” he said. “… We’ll get through this.”
Hmm.
There are conclusions to draw here. BYU has to recruit better defensive linemen, linemen who can pressure the quarterback and who don’t get blown off the line of scrimmage on the ground. Second, the offense has not been what it had been thought to be, not in the run game, despite a nice effort by Chris Brooks, not enough in the pass. Injuries have played a role in that, but injuries happen to every team. And lastly, before and when BYU gets into the Big 12, it needs an upgrade in depth, in number of athletes. There has been progress in that regard, but not yet enough.
BYU knows it, a less-than-stellar Notre Dame (3-2) knows it, knew it before Saturday night’s game was even played. Everybody knows it.
As comparisons go, that’s where the Cougars are in arrears.
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