AP
No. 22 BYU heads into October having dealt admirably with some September setbacks; it looks forward to continuing its stellar play Friday night against Skip Holtz’s undefeated La Tech Bulldogs
PROVO — Louisiana Tech coach Louis Leo “Skip” Holtz Jr. has seen a lot of college football in his 56-plus years on the planet, and not just because his father happens to be legendary football coach Lou Holtz.
Junior played wide receiver under his father at Notre Dame, then was an assistant coach at Florida State, Colorado State, Notre Dame, Connecticut and South Carolina before getting head coaching jobs at East Carolina, South Florida and La Tech, the latter the last eight seasons where he has built a formidable, winning program in Ruston, Louisiana.
Skip Holtz knows good football when he sees it, and he said Tuesday in a video teleconference with reporters that the BYU team his Bulldogs will face Friday at empty LaVell Edwards Stadium (7 p.m. MDT, ESPN2) has the potential to be special.
“BYU has outright dominated its opponents for the first two (games), and if you don’t play at a really high level, they can embarrass you and make you look bad,” he said.
As No. 22 BYU, which crushed Navy 55-3 and Troy 48-7 19 days apart, heads into the October portion of its schedule, one has to wonder what its record would be if the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t obliterated what was supposed to be a phenomenal September schedule.
Would the Cougars be undefeated after playing Power Five foes Utah, Michigan State, Arizona State and Minnesota instead of Group of Five replacements Navy and Troy? That question will never be answered, and that might be the biggest shame of the pandemic-altered 2020 season for the Cougars.
Clearly, though, this is the best group of talent fifth-year coach Kalani Sitake has assembled in Provo. That much is evident through the first month of the season, as BYU is among the country’s statistical leaders on both sides of the ball. Even heart-wrenching, season-ending injuries sustained by arguably two of the best players on the team, tight end Matt Bushman and defensive back Chaz Ah You, haven’t slowed BYU.
Depth issues that plagued Sitake’s teams the first four seasons appear to have been resolved, even as mishaps that robbed promising running backs Jackson McChesney and Hinckley Ropati of their seasons and positive COVID-19 tests and the resulting contact tracing took others out of games and added to the despair.
“I see no weaknesses (on film),” Holtz said.
“As of right now, we have had guys step in and perform well,” assistant head coach Ed Lamb said on his “Coordinators’ Corner” show Monday.
The Cougars saw this coming, and team leaders such as Bushman, quarterback Zach Wilson, running back Lopini Katoa, linebacker Isaiah Kaufusi and nose tackle Khyiris Tonga hinted as much in August’s preseason training camp, while being careful not to come across as being boastful or overly confident.
“We think we might have something special here, but we can’t stop working hard, get ahead of ourselves,” Wilson said.
What has Sitake learned about his team a month into the season?
“It’s a good group of young men,” he said. “I will always love these guys. Being a head coach here, it has been awesome for me to be a part of this program. But just to see our guys lead the way, the number of veterans on our team, it has been really helpful throughout the process since March. … There has been a lot of growth during this time facing adversity, but it has made us a lot closer as a group.”
Even special teams, which was a bit shaky last year when the Cougars went 7-6 and arguably cost them a couple of wins with missed field goals, mishandled punt snaps and other miscues, seems to have improved. Sophomore kicker Jake Oldroyd booted a 54-yard field goal to end the first half against Troy that would have been good from 60 yards, at least.
Nobody in Provo is satisfied, however.
“Hopefully we can keep getting better,” Sitake said. “There are still a lot of things that we can improve on and some things we can do differently defensively that I think will make us even better. Still upset about the seven points and the three points we gave up.”
That identity forming after last year that BYU could stand toe-to-toe with the big boys of college football, but have massive letdowns against inferior competition? It’s heading out the door in 2020, although the remaining lineup of cupcake opponents will test that newfound resolve, with the possible exception of Houston on Oct. 16 in the, um, Space City.
“I think that (preferred identity) is something you keep working on,” Sitake said. “And it is like the concept of nicknames. You never make up your own. Same thing with identity. I think we want to let our opponents decide what our identity is when they face us. … We will let you (media) guys and everybody else decide whether or not the identity has been placed.”
For his part, La Tech’s Holtz is well-aware of BYU’s past identity, having faced the program when he was CSU’s receivers coach in 1989. BYU beat the Rams 45-16 in Fort Collins that year.
“We certainly understand the challenge that we have this week with BYU,” Holtz said. “I think they are putting up gaudy numbers right now when you look at them statistically. Offensively, they have six or seven statistics where they are ranked in the top 10 in the country.”
⚪️3 DAYS TIL GAMEDAY!!! @BYUfootball pic.twitter.com/4XE0JegT5E
— BYU Equipment (@byuequipment) September 29, 2020
Holtz said it is a “shame” that fans won’t be allowed into LES for the second straight game, but noticed from watching film on the Troy game that the Cougars were still able to generate their own energy, the sign of a well-prepared team.
“Very experienced team, very seasoned team, very mature team,” Holtz said. “Big, physical, strong, athletic. It is going to be a heckuva challenge for us on defense, and then when you look at them on defense, I think statistically they are even better.”
Remember two years ago when chunk plays, explosive plays, were as rare as Democrats in Utah County? Problem solved.
The Cougars rank first nationally in pass plays of 30-plus yards and 40-plus yards.
“We have got the comment once or twice from opposing coaches, and we see it too with our defensive staff: Our offensive is built like an NFL offense this year,” Lamb said. “We are running the ball effectively. We have got a big, powerful offensive line, a quarterback who can make all the throws. There’s just a lot of balance. … Right now we have a lot of different arrows in our quiver.”
Too bad the targets have changed.
from Deseret News https://ift.tt/30jj2HG
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