The Costly Mistakes BYU Must Fix Before Facing Notre Dame

It's officially Notre Dame week for the BYU football program. In the preseason, the BYU-Notre Dame matchup was circled as a potential top 10 matchup between two playoff contenders. Through five games, both BYU and Notre Dame have lived up to the preseason hype. BYU-Notre Dame will be the first top 10 matchup in the history of LaVell Edwards Stadium.

The Cougars took care of business in a weird, yet dominant, game over Iowa State. The scoreboard did not reflect how dominant the Cougars were against the Cyclones, meaning BYU has some things to clean up before it takes on a top five team in Notre Dame. These are the costly mistakes that need to be cleaned up before the Fighting Irish come to Provo.

Red Zone Offense

Going into the game against Iowa State, BYU had the best red zone offense in college football. Excluding garbage time and kneel downs, BYU had scored 13 touchdowns in 13 red zone trips.

Everything changed for BYU's red zone offense when LJ Martin suffered an injury. Without Martin in the lineup, BYU really struggled to run the football between the tackles and, therefore, struggled to finish drives with touchdowns.

BYU had five red zone trips against Iowa State and scored two touchdowns out of five tries. BYU had two turnovers on downs inside the ISU five yard-line and one field goal. BYU experienced similar red zone troubles the last time Martin was out of the lineup against Georgia Tech in the Pop Tart's Bowl.

BYU must capitalize on scoring opportunities if it hopes to upset Notre Dame. Aaron Roderick and the BYU staff will need to manufacture red zone touchdowns since it's clear that none of BYU's running backs will be ready to run between the tackles against Notre Dame.

It's also worth noting that BYU's two failed red zone drives could have had different outcomes without some questionable decisions on pass interference calls. If even one of those flags had been thrown, the Iowa State game would have been much more comfortable and this wouldn't be as much of a talking point. BYU tried to use its size in the passing game and Iowa State used physicality to combat that. The Cyclones were very fortunate they weren't flagged for pass interference.

The Punt Return Situation

It goes without saying that Tiger Bachmeier really struggled to field punts against Iowa State. He muffed two punts in critical moments of the game, and he made some questionable decisions deep in BYU territory. Bachmeier struggled against TCU and Colorado as well, the last two games he was the primary punt returner.

That's a situation that needs to get sorted during the bye week. If starting puntturner Cannon DeVries is healthy, he will resume punt return duties and BYU will be fine. If DeVries can't go, the Cougars will need to find another punt retuner.

You simply can't afford mistakes like muffed punts and poor return decisions against a team like Notre Dame.

Penalties

Penalties have officially become a theme for this BYU football team. Frankly, penalties were the only reason Iowa State scored points in the first half. BYU was flagged six times for 65 yards against Iowa State:

2 false starts
1 holding
1 pass interference
1 personal foul
1 unnecessary roughness

BYU ranks 67th in penalty yards this season. It might be too late to clean up at this point of the season, as that's normally a habit that is established in Fall Camp. Still, the Cougars need to do everything in their power to clean up the procedural penalties, at minimum.

Notre Dame is one of the top three least penalized teams in college football. BYU can't afford the unncecessary, self-inflicted penalties against the Fighting Irish.

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