What a difference a winless month makes.
That’s the bottom line when it comes to analyzing the recently completed BYU football season, as the Cougars marched out of independence and into the Big 12 with an 8-5 record marred considerably by the 0-for-4 October in which star quarterback Jaren Hall played hurt, the Cougars’ defense utterly collapsed and head coach Kalani Sitake’s program wobbled so much that he was forced to eventually part ways with several lifelong friends/assistant coaches.
“This was a tough year for our program (with) some changes and things like that. But the faith and the love, all that stuff remains. Even though we went through a bad stretch, because everybody looks at the (final) results, as the adversity came, I was just proud of these guys. They stuck together and worked through it and just showed the unity that we have in this program and in our culture and in our team.” — BYU football coach Kalani Sitake
Sure, the Cougars responded to that awful October and losses to Notre Dame, Arkansas, Liberty and East Carolina in impressive fashion, given the state they were in, and finished the 2022 campaign with four wins, including a 24-23 victory over favored SMU without Hall when the defense, believe it or not, saved the day.
But the lasting impression from Sitake’s seventh season, BYU’s last of 12 as an independent, is that the Big 12-bound program regressed when it was expected to leave independence with momentum after going 11-1 in 2020 and 10-3 in 2021.
“This was a tough year for our program (with) some changes and things like that,” Sitake acknowledged after the win in New Mexico improved his bowl record to 4-2 and his overall record to 56-34. “But the faith and the love, all that stuff remains.
“Even though we went through a bad stretch, because everybody looks at the (final) results, as the adversity came, I was just proud of these guys,” he continued. “They stuck together and worked through it and just showed the unity that we have in this program and in our culture and in our team.”
However, any good synopsis of the 2022 season must include the observation that there appear to be cracks in that culture, as no fewer than a dozen players who were Cougars when the season began with the 50-21 pounding of South Florida had entered the transfer portal, including some key contributors such as tight end Dallin Holker, offensive linemen Campbell and Clark Barrington, linebackers Keenan Pili and Tate Romney, and cornerback Gabe Jeudy-Lally.
To be fair, every program in the country has seen departures; BYU is in no way alone in that regard.
In addition, at least seven players who have eligibility remaining have declared for the NFL draft, most notably the aforementioned Hall, receivers Puka Nacua and Gunner Romney, and linebacker Payton Wilgar.
Then again, Sitake’s program is already drawing some probable contributors from the portal, standouts such as former Pitt/USC QB Kedon Slovis, Boise State defenders Isaiah Bagnah and Jackson Cravens, and Utah State offensive lineman Weylin Lapuaho.
Fans should expect several more before spring camp begins in early March.
The 2022 season will also be remembered for a tragic occurrence days two days before the calendar moved to 2023.
Two weeks after the season ended, the BYU football family mourned the death of promising offensive lineman Sione Veikoso, 22, who died Dec. 29 when a retaining wall collapsed on him and several other construction crew members in his native Hawaii.
For his part, Sitake took issue on a couple of occasions after the regular season ended with the 35-26 win over Stanford with assertions from reporters that the program was backsliding a bit after the team began the season with plenty of returning starters on both sides of the ball and lofty expectations galore. At last June’s media day, throughout fall camp in August and most of September until they were pummeled 41-20 by Oregon, players spoke of having the pieces in place to make it to a New Year’s Six bowl game.
“Looking at the year as a whole now, 7-5 (record), there are a lot of (media) guys that predicted that would happen,” Sitake said. “And now they are all surprised by it?”
Sitake continued: “What I have seen is from the beginning to the end is there has been a lot of progress in our program. … We are better and we are going to this bowl game to get our team ready (to springboard) into 2023.”
The Cougars returned 85% of their production from the previous season, including Hall, who had sat out the 31-28 loss to UAB in the 2021 Independence Bowl.
In retrospect, if there was a play that significantly altered the Cougars’ 2022 season, it came on Sept. 29, when Hall took a hard hit in the fourth quarter of an eventual 38-26 win over Utah State and suffered a shoulder injury that would linger well into October.
Does BYU beat Notre Dame in Las Vegas with a healthy Hall? That’s debatable. What isn’t in question is that the Cougars’ lack of depth was exposed. For instance, offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick believed a less-than-healthy Hall gave BYU a better chance to win that game and three more after that than any of the backups, most notably Jacob Conover, who has transferred to Arizona State.
“Yeah, we are excited to go to the Big 12. It will be a lot of fun,” Sitake said after the win over SMU. “We gotta work hard. We gotta be a more physical team. And that goes through the offseason.”
December, and early January, brought as much news off the field than on it, as Sitake hired former Weber State head coach Jay Hill as his defensive coordinator (and safeties coach) to replace Ilaisa Tuiaki and filled out the remainder of his defensive staff with special teams coordinator and defensive ends coach Kelly Poppinga, defensive tackles coach Sione Po’uha and linebackers coach Justin Ena.
Jernaro Gilford was retained as cornerbacks coach.
Citing the need for a change, Sitake also released his top two strength and conditioning coaches, Nu’u Tafisi and Justin McClure.
Want more proof that the program slid in 2022? As of Jan. 2, the Cougars were No. 61 in Jeff Sagarin’s college football ratings for USA Today, and No. 65 in ESPN’s College Football Power Index. They were No. 34 and No. 41 in those two gauges last year.
According to Sagarin, the Cougars played the 66th most difficult schedule in the country, after having played the 65th hardest schedule last year.
How did BYU’s offense perform in 2022?
The offense got off to a blazing fast start, literally, as Nacua took a fly sweep 75 yards to the house on the first play of the season against South Florida. Led by Hall, Nacua and an experienced offensive line that included probable NFL draft pick Blake Freeland and Clark Barrington, who joined his brother, Campbell, at Baylor, the offense remained the strength of the team for the third straight year.
Injuries to Nacua, Gunner Romney, Hall, receiver Kody Epps and running backs Lopini Katoa, Chris Brooks and Miles Davis slowed the offense considerably in October, as has been mentioned, but the unit still finished 44th in the country in scoring offense (31.3 points per game) and 36th in total offense (426.3 yards per game).
In 2021, when Tyler Allgeier emerged as one of the best running backs in school history, the Cougars were 29th in scoring offense and 17th in total offense.
Like the team as a whole, the offense didn’t quite live up to expectations in 2022, but did a remarkable job taking care of the football. BYU had just 10 turnovers all season, the second-lowest of any season in school history. It had nine in the 12-game 2020 season. They lost just three fumbles, the fewest ever, to break the record of four lost fumbles in 2006.
The offense recovered nicely in November, putting 31 points on Boise State, 52 on Utah Tech and 35 on Stanford when the Cougars unleashed a big-time rushing attack and ran all over the Pac-12 Cardinal.
The group was also good enough to eke out that 24-23 win over SMU with a four-string quarterback, Sol-Jay Maiava-Peters. Credit to Roderick and his staff for devising a game plan to utilize the third-year redshirt freshman’s strengths and pulling out a win after not completing a pass the entire second half.
The major knock on the offense in 2022 was the constant failures on third-and-short and fourth-and-short situations, failures that may have cost the Cougars wins against Notre Dame, Arkansas and East Carolina. The Cougars were a reasonable 31st in the country on third down (44.6%), but were 126th in fourth-down conversion percentage (8 of 26, for 30.8%).
They also took a step back in the red zone, scoring just 79.5% of the times they moved the ball inside the 20. They scored 26 touchdowns and kicked nine field goals in 44 red zone appearances, which ranks 102nd in the country. Last year, they ranked 26th in the country in red zone offense.
Offensive MVP: Hall finished his fifth and final season at BYU with 3,171 passing yards and a passer efficiency rating of 160.8, completing 248 of 376 passes for 31 touchdowns with just six interceptions. He’s the easy pick for team offensive MVP, after Allgeier got the nod last year.
Honorable mention nods go to Nacua, who combined with Hall to make the play of the season, that fourth-down touchdown catch that beat Boise State 31-28 on Nov. 5, and Cal transfer Brooks, who ran for 817 yards and six touchdowns in 11 games.
Left tackle Freeland, a third-team AP All-American, was also a key component for an offense that protected Hall well and allowed just 13 sacks in 13 games.
How did BYU’s defense perform in 2022?
There’s a reason Sitake shuffled his defensive staff. BYU’s defense struggled, beginning with the 41-20 loss to Oregon and continuing through October, even when Sitake took over defensive play-calling duties.
Sure, there were some season-ending injuries to key cogs such as safety Malik Moore, linebackers Chaz Ah You, Payton Wilgar and Max Tooley, defensive lineman Josh Larsen and cornerback D’Angelo Mandell, but the depth Sitake and his staff have worked so hard to develop didn’t fully materialize.
BYU finished with just 15 sacks (130th in the country) and still didn’t wreak havoc on opposing offenses, although the defense did turn in three pick-sixes, two by Tooley and one by Ben Bywater. Bywater’s interception return for a touchdown in the bowl win stands out as the defensive play of the season, followed closely by Jakob Robinson’s game-winning stop of Tanner Mordecai on SMU’s two-point conversion try.
The Cougars finished 96th in scoring defense (29.4 ppg.) and 95th in total defense (408.1 ypg.). For the third-straight season, they struggled to get off the field on third down, ranking 123rd (46.1%) in that category.
Defensive MVP: Before he suffered a season-ending injury in the seventh game, Tooley was having a phenomenal season and emerging as the defensive playmaker BYU has so desperately needed. Despite missing six games, he finished as BYU’s fourth-leading tackler and gets the nod from here as defensive MVP. Tooley also had three interceptions, a sack and a forced fumble.
Bywater (team-leading 98 tackles) and cornerback-turned-safety Micah Harper (62 tackles, three pass breakups) also deserve consideration.
How did BYU’s special teams perform in 2022?
Kicker Jake Oldroyd’s well-documented struggles on field goal attempts against Baylor, Oregon and Utah State came from out of the blue and put a damper on an otherwise respectable year for BYU’s special teams. The graduating senior finished 9 of 14 on field goal attempts, but was 45 of 45 on PATs.
Hobbs Nyberg was solid on punt returns for the second-straight season, averaging 12.8 yards per return, with a long of 42.
The Cougars gave up an 89-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to South Florida’s Jimmy Horn in the opener, but generally covered kickoffs and punts well.
Special teams MVP: Punter Ryan Rehkow gets the nod for the third straight year after a slow start, by his standards. Rehkow punted 40 times for a 46.2 average, with 12 traveling 50 or more yards. He got off a 71-yard against East Carolina and was particularly effective in the New Mexico Bowl, setting the bowl record for longest punt, 67 yards, after a 65-yarder earlier in the game.
Rehkow pinned opponents inside their 20-yard-line 16 times.