Provo • Aaron Roderick is a man who prefers to deal with issues head on — maybe to the extreme.
That’s why, this week, he hasn’t shied away from talking about BYU’s slow starts. If anything, he’s gone the opposite direction.
“Sometimes if you focus on something too much it can become a complex,” Roderick said. “But I think anything worth doing is worth overdoing. So I’d rather just address it, and be honest with ourselves about it.”
Collectively, BYU is taking a page out of Roderick’s playbook of trying to embrace the problem at hand. The coaching staff as a whole is latching on to pretty much any detail throughout the day that can reverse the trend.
The team lifts started at 7:45 a.m. instead of 5 p.m. to get players’ internal clocks started earlier in the day.
“We changed our lifts just so we can get up, get going and get our juices flowing so by Saturday we will be locked and loaded,” linebacker Ben Bywater said. “There are a lot of cerebral things that happen behind the scenes that we aren’t a part of but just get implemented. For us, 1:30, we just got to come ready to go.
“Simple as that, you got to start dialing it up at 7:45 in the morning, not 4:45 in the afternoon. We just started that.”
Other smaller adjustments, Roderick said, have been made to the schedule for a similar effect.
“If I knew the answer, we would have fixed it a long time ago,” Roderick said, acknowledging the staff is grasping at straws to see what works. “It’s a program-wide thing.”
Thus far, BYU has lost two games — against Oregon and Notre Dame — because of its tendency to dig itself a hole. It escaped two other slower starts against Wyoming and Utah State, mostly by being the more talented team.
With SEC foe Arkansas coming to town this week — a team who likes to run the ball and control the game — a similarly slow start could result in a third loss and a season slowly slipping away.
“Bottom line is we have to focus better and be ready to play,” Roderick concluded.
Worst case scenario?
Well, there is no opportunity to fix a run defense quite like playing Arkansas.
On a serious note, playing the Razorbacks could be a potential worst-case scenario for a team that hasn’t been able to consistently stop the run. Arkansas runs the ball more than any other team in the country, excluding the service academies.
Moreover, its rushing attack is spearheaded by its quarterback, KJ Jefferson. BYU defensive coordinator Iliasa Tuiaki compared the offense to the Cam Newton attack at Auburn. So this is going to be a complex, heavy running team. Not exactly what BYU would like to see as a defense giving up 4.2 yards per carry this year and ranked No. 116 in run defense by Pro Football Focus.
“We got to put out a great product on the field and try to get some stops,” Tuiaki said.
Easier said than done against a group that has run for over 1,000 yards this year and is averaging nearly 5 yards per go at it.
Key playmakers are questionable
Gunner Romney returned for less than two games before exiting again. This time Romney was briefly checked into a Las Vegas hospital before being released. The injury Romney suffered during the Notre Dame game hasn’t been disclosed, but head coach Kalani Sitake said they are using precaution because of his injury history.
That said, Roderick is “hopeful” Romney will play this week. Running back Miles Davis, who hasn’t played the last two weeks, is also in the same position as being listed “hopeful” to return.
Wide receiver Chase Roberts, who has been sidelined the last three weeks, is expected to play, according to Roderick. He noted that Roberts is “further ahead” than Davis and Romney.
On the defensive side, defensive lineman Josh Larsen and linebacker Tavita Gagnier are out for the season. Their injuries were not disclosed by Tuiaki.
Lineman Gabe Summers has a torn PCL but will play as much as his pain tolerance will let him. Fellow lineman Blake Mangelson is out for another “week or two.”
