PROVO — The Air Force Falcons landed here this weekend with one of the nation's top-rated pass defenses.
They flew out of town Saturday night trailing smoke after Max Hall and Co. shot those high rankings full of holes.
Entering Saturday's matchup with BYU at LaVell Edwards Stadium the Falcons were ranked No. 1 in the nation in total pass defense — giving up 127 aerial yards per game — and No. 10 in the nation in pass efficiency defense.
In the first half alone Hall and his Cougar receiving corps had those rankings sinking fast. At the break Hall had completed 19-of-24 for 199 yards and three touchdowns. He also had one apparent TD pass negated on an offensive pass interference call and one of those five incompletions came on a down and out route where tight end Dennis Pitta was knocked to the turf, but got no call.
Hall added another 127 yards passing and one TD in the third quarter and finished the game 33-of-45 with 377 yards and five TD passes — one more TD pass than Air Force had given up the entire season. He did, however, throw two second-half interceptions on a day in which he passed Ty Detmer as BYU's all-time winningest quarterback with 30 career victories.
"He's been a heck of a quarterback for us," Pitta said. "He's won more games than Steve Young and Ty Detmer and all those guys who came before him, so he definitely should be remembered in that way."
In the first two quarters Hall's main targets were his tight ends and running backs, who caught 16 of his 19 completions. Pitta went into intermission with seven catches for 81 yards and two TDs. Manase Tonga finished with five catches and Harvey Unga two.
"We've always had success against Air Force over the middle and tonight was no different ... and it was nice not to get paid attention to so much like I have in games past and really be able to contribute," Pitta said.
The Cougars opened the second half with a totally different scheme by throwing to the wide-outs. In fact, Hall's first eight completions of the second half were to his receivers on the outside — mainly because the Falcons began dropping their safeties inside to take away the short routes over the middle.
"It left some stuff outside for the receivers," Hall said. "It gave us some free-access looks one-on-one that we were able to take advantage of."
Hall had one third-quarter TD pass to wide receiver Luke Ashworth and another to wide receiver O'Neill Chambers.
Pitta finished the night with his first 100-yard receiving game of the season, with 111 yards on nine catches. Coach Bronco Mendenhall said the Cougars didn't come into the game with any specific plan to throw to Pitta more than usual.
"It's just the way it worked out ... if they play coverage a certain way he's going to be open, and Max did an excellent job of identifying that and finding him," Mendenhall said.
Overall, the Cougars were able to throw effectively against the Falcons by mixing up their cadence, which kept the ever-shifting Air Force defense a little unready at times, and because Hall, who was not sacked, had plenty of time to let his receivers get deep in their routes.
"Every defense has flaws, and it really comes down to execution versus execution," Mendenhall said.
It also helped that the Cougars were having good success on the ground as well.
"When we're able to run and throw the football, I think we have a very prolific and hard to stop offense," Mendenhall said.
However, the Cougars' passing game was not totally flawless. A mistake on a fourth-and-goal from the 2-yard line early in the fourth quarter cost BYU one more score and Hall an additional TD pass for his resume. Hall tried to hit Andrew George on a quick out down the goal line, but the Falcons were in double coverage and the pass was picked off by Chris Thomas. Hall said he should have called timeout or changed the play.
"Me and Andrew had a miscommunication and I threw a bad ball," he said.
e-mail: jimr@desnews.com