After BYU’s defense gave up seven touchdowns and 644 yards in a 52-35 loss to Arkansas a couple weeks ago, head coach Kalani Sitake made some significant changes to the way the Cougars’ defense is coached.
Defensive coordinator Ilaisa Tuiaki was moved to full-time defensive line coach and began coaching from the sidelines instead of the press box. Defensive ends coach Preston Hadley went from the field to the press box during games and began helping associate head coach Ed Lamb with the safeties.
And, of course, Sitake became the de facto defensive coordinator, and took over play-calling duties.
Have the changes worked? Yes and no.
“We played hard in all the games. I felt like we played just a little bit better (against ECU). Obviously, there are issues still, there are holes, there are things that happen in the games that we have still got to sew up all the way to the end of the game. … But yeah, we are definitely getting the effort.” — BYU defensive line coach Ilaisa Tuiaki
The Cougars, 4-5 heading into Saturday’s rivalry game against 6-2 Boise State at Albertsons Stadium (5 p.m. MDT, FS2), were riddled by Liberty’s average offense to the tune of 547 yards and 41 points with Sitake calling the defensive plays and formations.
BYU played a bit better on defense in last Friday’s 27-24 loss to an East Carolina crew with an offense averaging 467.2 yards per game — “holding” the Pirates to 424 yards — but still suffered its fourth-straight loss.
“We played hard in all the games. I felt like we played just a little bit better (against ECU),” Tuiaki said Tuesday. “Obviously, there are issues still, there are holes, there are things that happen in the games that we have still got to sew up all the way to the end of the game. … But yeah, we are definitely getting the effort.”
Against ECU, BYU’s offense helped its defense out, rushing for 244 yards and controlling the ball for nearly 34 minutes to keep ECU’s offense off the field. Still, the Pirates averaged 7.3 yards per play and got into only eight third-down situations, so it wasn’t like BYU’s defense won the day.
But the emphasis on ball control certainly helped.
“I just want points on the board. I don’t really care how they come,” Sitake said Monday, when asked if the run game will be emphasized more in November. “I haven’t given (offensive coaches) any instruction on what to do scheme-wise, or what to do with the ball. I just want to be innovative, creative, and find ways to get our players to play the best they can, and allow (quarterback) Jaren (Hall) to utilize all his weapons.”
One of those weapons, leading receiver Kody Epps, is out for the season with a shoulder injury. Another, leading rusher Chris Brooks, missed the ECU game and is doubtful for the Boise State game with a lingering hamstring issue, Sitake said on his coaches show Tuesday night.
A BYU football spokesperson said Tuesday that injuries and tight end Dallin Holker leaving the team have forced BYU to start 42 different players this season, 23 on defense and 19 on offense. Only New Mexico (47) and Texas A&M (43) have had more starters; Colorado is tied for third with BYU in that category with 42.
On defense, safety Malik Moore (five games), defensive linemen Earl Tuioti-Mariner (three), Lorenzo Fauatea (one) and Gabe Summers (three), linebackers Max Tooley (two) and Payton Wilgar (two), cornerback D’Angelo Mandell (one) and defensive end Tyler Batty (one) are starters who have missed games. Tuiaki said Tuesday that Tooley and Wilgar haven’t practiced this week, meaning they are doubtful at best for Saturday.
Moore is out for the season with a wrist/hand injury.
“We knew we were going to have to test our depth, and I hate that we have had to test it as often as we have had to this year. But that’s the game. Nobody is feeling sorry for us. We gotta keep rolling,” Sitake said. “We have some young guys that have to step up and make plays and give us some production.”
One of the players who has been forced into action on defense is fifth-year junior Morgan Pyper, who walked on out of Idaho Falls’ Hillcrest High in 2018 as a quarterback and is now playing linebacker. Pyper said getting a couple of stops in the fourth quarter Friday gave the defense a boost of confidence.
“We noticed what was going wrong for us as a defense and when you start to see progress in those certain aspects of the game, for sure you start to say, ‘All right guys, we knew we could do it, and now we proved it, so let’s make some moves,’” he said. “We want to make sure that we are getting better every single day and realizing there are some things we gotta work on, but there are some good things as well. And we need to capitalize on that.”
Tuiaki said his presence on the sidelines instead of in the press box hasn’t made much of a difference yet.
He said poor tackling is still an issue, along with the “shape” of the defense and guys being out of proper alignment.
“There is a certain shape that a defense has, and sometimes when you are playing with guys that don’t have as much experience, you lose the shape of that a little bit faster than you normally want to, or would, with more experienced guys,” Tuiaki said. “That ended up costing us too many big runs, it felt like. So yeah, we have got to continue to shore up tackling and just keep shape and keep working.”
The Cougars gave up 11 runs of 10 or more yards to ECU; Lamb said on his “Coordinators’ Corner” program that the Pirates’ running backs gained 80 yards on “bounce” plays when they were originally stopped at the line of scrimmage, but broke contain and were off to the races.
“You would like for tackles to be multiple people showing up at the point of contact,” Tuiaki said. “And sometimes it is the shape, or the pursuit. And sometimes it is the guy that makes first contact. All those things need to be sewn up.”
Until then, don’t expect BYU to sew up many wins.
Cougars on the air
BYU (4-5)
at Boise State (6-2)
Saturday, 5 p.m. MDT
Albertsons Stadium, Boise, Idaho
TV: Fox Sports 2
Radio: KSL NewsRadio 102.7 FM/1160 AM