BYU Film Review: Can BYU Find Its Pass Rush Ahead of Arizona Matchup?

Earlier this offseason, senior defensive tackle Keanu Tanuvasa set a lofty goal: “We should have around 50 sacks this year.” After week one, BYU has about 49 to go. Upon first watch, BYU’s pass rush was MIA against the overmatched Trailblazers. Per PFF, BYU generated pressure on under 20% of dropbacks and recorded just one sack and no QB hits. On paper, that’s incredibly alarming, especially given the quality of both last week’s opponent and next week’s.

Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita is a stud. When kept clean last season, he was among the most efficient passers in the country, throwing for nearly 8 yards per attempt, 23 touchdowns, and just 2 interceptions. Under pressure, it was a different story. For BYU to be at its best this week, it needs to have a better statistical output rushing the passer than last week. Plain and simple. But upon rewatch, maybe BYU’s pass rush wasn’t as bad as originally thought.

Below, we have provided a cutup of every dropback BYU’s starters faced on defense. Here are some things we noticed:

For the sickos like me worried about pressure, here’s every first half pass from Utah Tech. What do you notice? pic.twitter.com/x3M6lhDAjk
— Joe Wheat (@joewheat27) September 7, 2026

Utah Tech was getting the ball out quick

Utah Tech quarterbacks were going to their first read whether they were open or not. That should help educate not only BYU’s pressure numbers, but also Utah Tech's box score. On those 15 dropbacks, Utah Tech completed just 4 passes for 30 yards (2 yards per attempt). On Utah Tech’s first half dropbacks, the quarterback released the ball in 2.19 seconds on average. To put that into context, the average FBS time to throw last season was around 2.75 seconds. The quickest time to pressure among FBS quarterbacks was Stanford’s Elijah Brown who was pressured after 2.81 seconds on average. According to PFF, BYU’s average time to pressure for the game was...2.8 seconds. In other words, BYU was getting pressure as fast as any defense last season, but Utah Tech’s game plan was to eliminate BYU’s pass rush by getting the ball out as fast as humanly possible.

BYU was able to consistently create muddy pockets and pressures from primarily a base defense

BYU defensive end Hunter Clegg against Utah Tech | BYU Photo

When Kelly Poppinga took over as BYU’s defensive coordinator, the common consensus was that he would return BYU to Bronco Mendenhall’s aggressive, blitz-heavy style. It did not look that way on Saturday. BYU brought five or more rushers twice on 15 dropbacks. Unsurprisingly, BYU got pressure on both drop backs. BYU was playing its base defense almost the entire first half. Four-man front, straight rush with very few stunts or blitzes. From a game plan perspective, I expect this game will look more like an NFL preseason game than anything BYU will look like when it takes on Arizona. That is by design. After all, why give any usable film to a Big 12 contender than you absolutely have to? If anything, I was impressed BYU was able to get as much pressure as it did given that it were outnumbered on every rush.

Utah Tech employed an average of 5.8 men in pass protection per dropback compared to 4.1 rushers on average. BYU was still able to generate some kind of pressure on 9 out of 15 plays. That should be encouraging.

BYU’s personnel will look much different against Arizona

BYU linebacker Isaiah Glasker against TCU | BYU Photo

If you look closely, you will notice that a few names you recognize were not on the field. Linebacker Isaiah Glasker did not play. Nusi Taumoepeau played three snaps total. Only three players rushed the passer more than eight times, with none of those players being starters. It felt clear from the personnel decisions that BYU was working more to get players' feet wet in a real game filling up the stat sheet against an overmatched opponent.

BYU’s defensive ends won a lot of reps, but need to work on technique

Here is Jack Kelly running by first round pick Spencer Fano for a sack pic.twitter.com/9nXlQOwLfJ
— David Syvertsen (@Ourlads_Sy) April 25, 2026

This is one area where I felt BYU could improve on. If you focus on BYU’s edge rushers, you will see that even on snaps where they did beat Utah Tech’s tackles, they often stayed too tall, forcing them to run around the quarterback rather than at him. Jack Kelly was a master at this. In the clip above, watch as Kelly stays low and dips his shoulder into the tackle, allowing him to turn tighter and get to the quarterback faster. He is then able to make direct contact with the QB rather than only being able to swipe at the QB’s ankles as he passes. Nusi Taumoepeau did the same thing in the clip below allowing him to force the game-winning interception. This is a fixable issue. Hunter Clegg and Tausili Akana are talented enough to do this and coachable enough to fix it. Stuff like this is not going to be completely polished in week one.

What does this tell us about Arizona?

BYU defensive end Tausili Akana pressures Noah Fifita in Cougars' win over Arizona | BYU Photo

Overall, my concern level about the BYU pass rush is near zero. There are certainly things to clean up, but the flow of the game did not lend itself to a heavy-sack game. Utah Tech called the game like it knew BYU would get home if its quarterbacks held the ball any longer than necessary. They repeatedly forced throws to covered receivers all in the name of getting the ball out quickly. You take that every single time if you are a defense.

Against Arizona, though, BYU is going to have to find a way to get home. The only way to stop Noah Fifita is to heat him up. In his career against BYU, Fifita has been pressured on nearly 40% of his dropbacks, completing 34% of his pressured passes, for 3.3 yards per attempt, 0 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. Keep that going and I like BYU’s chances Saturday. BYU’s pass rush was fine against Utah Tech, but there will be things going for BYU’s pass rush that were not in week one.

For one, Fifita held the ball longer than all but 20 FBS quarterbacks last season (3.05 seconds). BYU will also have a full complement of pass rushers with Glasker and Taumoepeau fully healthy and ready to go. Finally, BYU will be much more aggressive against Arizona because they have to be. BYU has the secondary to turn up the heat as much as possible, because if they just sit back and let Fifita come to them, he will carve them up like a Thanksgiving turkey. I expect a much better performance from BYU in week two.

Sign up to our free newsletter and follow us on X and Facebook for the latest news.

Add us as a preferred source on Google