'Self-Inflicted Wounds' Stalled the BYU Offense Against Sam Houston State

A closer look at the game log and where BYU's offense fell short against Sam Houston State

During Monday's press conference, BYU head coach Kalani Sitake described BYU's offensive shortfalls against Sam Houston State as "very fixable things." Aaron Roderick described them as "self-inflicted wounds." We looked back at the game log against Sam Houston State to note where BYU's drives failed. 

Spoiler alert: Roderick and Sitake were right.

BYU had 13 drives against Sam Houston State. Two of them ended in touchdowns and 11 of them resulted in no points.

Of those 11 failed drives, three of them came in the fourth quarter when BYU was up 14-0. At that point, BYU's primary focus was to run the ball and drain the clock.

So for the purpose of this article, let's exclude those three drives in the fourth quarter. That leaves us with eight drives against Sam Houston State where BYU failed to score. Those drives are in bold font below.

• Drive 1: Touchdown
• Drive 2: Illegal block in the back brings back first down screen to Deion Smith
• Drive 3: Incomplete to Keelan Marion on fourth down
• Drive 4: Illegal touching & block in the back
• Drive 5: Pass to Kingston short of the sticks
• Drive 6: Three and out
• Drive 7: Delay of game turns 3rd & 5 to 3rd & 10
• Drive 8: Illegal use of hands penalty
• Drive 9: Holding puts BYU in 1st & 18
• Drive 10: Touchdown
• Drive 11: Running out the clock, no penalties
• Drive 12: Running out the clock, no penalties
• Drive 13: Running out the clock, no penalties

Five of those eight drives were stalled by penalties. If you're Kalani Sitake and Aaron Roderick, you start there. There were multiple first downs brought back by penalties. If those penalties are cleaned up, BYU probably scores more than 14 points against the Bearkats.

That's not the only thing that needs to be corrected, however.

For BYU's offense to succeed in the Big 12, they will need to be better at overcoming adversity and creating chunk plays. There's no doubt about it. BYU didn't have a passing play of 20 yards or more - that needs to change on Saturday against Southern Utah. 

The Cougars also struggled to run the ball and their first down production was subpar. Those two things need to be corrected by conference play.

BYU's offense has one more week to fine tune and correct the "very fixable things." BYU takes on Southern Utah on Saturday on ESPN+.

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