Seminoles hand Cougars their hides
It was a fun two weeks. Back to the reality that speed kills. (Well actually it probably wasn’t the speed that killed us in this game (though the speedy QB was real trouble). It seems like execution, size at receiver, and overall desire from FSU led to this result.)
The temporarily vaunted BYU defense was completely and utterly smoked by FSU. The first FSU punt was in the third quarter. Every time FSU got the ball they scored a touchdown. Max Hall tried too hard (as he tends to do when the Cougs get in trouble) and as a result melted down and threw three INT’s (as he tends to do when the Cougs get in trouble).
Harvey looked great. Unfortunately he may have re-injured that hamstring. Ugh.
“Don’t call it yet! There are still ten minutes on the clock…”
I can always tell a game is effectively over if it would require a historic achievement for one team to pull ahead. If they were capable of miracles today, they wouldn’t be so far behind.
Then again I was there for the 2001 Utah game. Whoa.
Comment by Ben Pratt — September 19, 2009 @ 6:38 pm
So sad…
Comment by Mark D. — September 19, 2009 @ 6:46 pm
I was hoping to eat crow by publishing the first part of this post in the third quarter. No such luck.
Comment by Geoff J — September 19, 2009 @ 7:02 pm
Dang. I could handle losing. (Remember that I started the season thinking we’d lose 3) What was most embarrassing was that the D didn’t even show up. They were playing like a team from Montana. THAT was embarrassing.
Comment by Clark — September 19, 2009 @ 7:14 pm
How is that tiny #7 for BYU a cornerback in division 1? The kid should be playing for Ursinus or Johns Hopkins.
Hall did suck, but I’m not putting this one on him so much. Two of his interceptions were thrown after the game was already over. The other one (I think there was only one other one) was a blatant pass interference that wasn’t called. No, the defense takes the brunt of the blame for this one.
That said, the offense was way too predictable. Those quick slants were effective in the first quarter but then the FSU defenders started jumping the routes. You can’t go back to the same well over and over.
Also gotta give FSU a lot of credit for being big, strong, fast, and well-coached.
At least we’ve still got the Utah game to look forward to. Crush the Utes and I’ll be happy.
Comment by Tom — September 19, 2009 @ 8:20 pm
I was surprised at how completely their offensive line dominated our defensive front. They don’t have a single guy on that line over 300 lbs but they abused our front seven all afternoon — both on run and pass plays.
Comment by Geoff J — September 19, 2009 @ 8:26 pm
Today was upset day all over the place. Unranked UW, FSU, and Oregon beat ranked USC, BYU, and Utah, respectively. With those last two losses, MWC being taken more seriously by BCS seems less likely today.
Comment by Ben Pratt — September 19, 2009 @ 8:26 pm
Not a good day for the mountain west in general… ugh the ESPN media will be all up now that MWC was humbled.
Comment by JonW — September 19, 2009 @ 10:24 pm
Re: MWC losses
A good day for Boise State, though.
Comment by Hunter — September 19, 2009 @ 11:15 pm
BSU is a good team. They throttled Fresno and play mostly patsies the rest of the way. I’ll be very surprised if they don’t end up 12-0.
Utah and BYU lost today so only TCU has a shot at running the table in the MWC now. The real question is if a one loss MWC team would leapfrog Boise State in the BCS rankings (based on the weakness of their schedule). Lest we forget, BSU was undefeated last until they lost to TCU in a bowl game.
Comment by Geoff J — September 19, 2009 @ 11:26 pm
At least it looks like Unga is not injured. They reportedly just sat him once the game started getting out of hand.
Comment by Geoff J — September 19, 2009 @ 11:45 pm
The “apology” I’ve heard is that they thought Johnson (sp) would play but he didn’t pass tests for his concussion. But he was the one who called things to a lot of the rest of the defense. So with him out they had to go to a far less effective backup plan.
I’m not sure that explains things well. (If anything it exposes a gap in how they train) But I’m sure he was missed.
All this said though, I think FSU exposed a lot of weaknesses many of us already knew. I’ve been harping on Hall’s tendency to throw into traffic midfield before. And the secondary has been weak for years.
Still, I think the biggest flaw was thinking this was going to be like Tulsa and then getting taken out of the game early.
Comment by Clark — September 21, 2009 @ 8:38 am
BTW – to all those blaming the refs. Yes, there were some blatant missed calls. But they all came late in the game. And the problem was that BYU was so desperate that they needed those plays to come back. Calling this one on the refs is just brain dead.
Comment by Clark — September 21, 2009 @ 8:39 am
In the post-game radio show Bronco said that missing Johnson and Tialavea hurt but that those are no excuses. They caught our defense unprepared in this one.
Hall simply started pressing once it became clear the defense was overmatched. We would have lost this one whether Hall tried too hard or not (because of the lack of defense) but Hall trying too hard made the final score more ugly I think.
Comment by Geoff J — September 21, 2009 @ 9:02 am
Bronco’s a class act.
This completely reminds me of that Tulsa game from a while back. Except Hall couldnt keep up. Like then part was coaching and prep. But then we had no secondary whereas today while not top notch we at least have them. On Saturday though there were a ton of missed tackles that never should have happened. Rhe commentary of the networks was brutal on our Defense.
It is interesting how this is a consistent problem for our team under Bronco: we let down on good teams after big wins. I just hope the team wasnt behaving like the fans prior to the game. Like our old penalty raising ways, this is a feature of the team mentality Bronco needs to eliminate. And itll be hard.
Comment by Clark — September 21, 2009 @ 12:10 pm
I think in this case more credit should be given to FSU than blame heaped on BYU. FSU had been underachieving so far and they brought their A+ game on Saturday. The A+ game from FSU would be hard for BYU to beat even if they had brought their own A game.
Comment by Geoff J — September 21, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
While FSU definitely played well, and I think we ought be gracious enough to admit it, I don’t think that explains most of what happened.
Comment by Clark — September 21, 2009 @ 9:21 pm
“Then again I was there for the 2001 Utah game. Whoa.”
Me too. A roommate of mine left the game halfway through the 4th quarter and took a beating for it the rest of the year.
In fact, it was the recollection of that game kept me hoping Saturday…in vain.
Comment by Eric Russell — September 24, 2009 @ 9:50 am