12 Big Things – Week 1 of CFB 2023

Week 1 is in the books and Week 2 has already started! Nonetheless, here were some of my observations from week 1 around BYU, the Big 12, and College Football in general.

BYU’s success at getting off the field

This is the best that I have seen BYU’s defense play under Kalani Sitake. True, this was Sam Houston State’s first game as an FBS team, but nonetheless, a shutout is a shutout, and it takes talent and scheme to hold the opponent scoreless. The key metric I watched was defensive success rate. It is about the most boring statistic, but to me it is a critical measure.

It measures how well you hold the opposing offense from the following:

• On 1st down, gaining 50% of the yards to go to the next first down
• On 2nd down, gaining 70% of the yards to go to the next first down
• On 3rd down and 4th down, gaining the first down
• Or, scoring a touchdown when at the goal

BYU’s defensive success rate was 32% on Saturday night. That was the best we have seen in the past 7 seasons. This is HUGE!!  Again, yes, it was against a newly minted FBS team. But, BYU fans got the defense they dreamed of (in part).

Take a look at BYU’s Defensive Success Rate over the past several years:

In summary, the defense did a much better job of getting off the field and letting the offense do their part. Or, letting the offense have an opportunity to do their job…

BYU’s offense did not do its job (particularly the offensive line)

The offensive line was one of the 2 biggest question marks for me as it relates to the offense. Going into the season, my two big questions were:

• How is BYU’s new look offensive line going to mesh?
• Who will Kedon Slovis throw to when he needs to get a 1st down?

I thought Trevor Matich gave a really good summary on BYU Sports Nation of the offensive line’s struggles. The line did not look great for most of the game. One of the questions I left the game with was, “Was LJ Martin the best running back in the game? Or, did the offensive line play much better in the second half, and if Aidan or Deion ran the ball in the second half, then they would have had as much success?”

There is something to a running back having vision. There is only so much that you can teach. Vision is as much about coaching what to watch for as it is knowing how to feel it out. We’ll see throughout the season whether LJ has superior vision, if the offensive line simply was better in the second half, or something else.

The metrics certainly bear out that the offensive line did not perform well.

BYU had 106 offensive line yards (OLY). If you need a deeper dive on offensive line yards, then look through this article. This metric attempts to attribute offensive line contribution to yards gained. The 106 offensive line yards in and of itself won’t tell you much. On a per game basis, it is actually equal to last year. But, the rub is when you look at the average offensive line yards per carry. It was down from 3.3 OLY last year to 3.2 OLY on Saturday. 

Ok, if I didn’t hadn’t lost everyone by now, then surely that last paragraph got rid of the remainder. Point is – Offensive line was worse on the run.

Another few metrics that bear it out. The offensive running success rate. (“Wait, you mentioned success rate somewhere earlier, right?”). This measures how effective the run game was at the following (repetition is a useful teacher):

• On 1st down, gaining 50% of the yards to go to the next first down
• On 2nd down, gaining 70% of the yards to go to the next first down
• On 3rd down and 4th down, gaining the first down
• Or, scoring a touchdown when at the goal

So, BYU performed at 51% in 2021 (the Allgeier year), at 45% last year, and at 30% on Saturday. 

Put another way, 70% of the time, BYU was getting less than 5 yards on first down run plays. Ok, not too bad you say? Well, after two plays of running they were still in a 3rd and long situation. 

Kedon and the long ball

I wondered who he was going to throw the ball to on 3rd down. His longest pass on the night was 18 yards. In 2021, Jaren Hall had 40 passes that went for over 18 yards, or about 4 per game. I still believe in Kedon, though he and the receivers still need more practice on their timing. 

Kedon over shot Isaac Rex on a third down. He over shot Darius Lassiter and Keelan Marion a few times on the deep ball. When Keanu Hill returns, watch to see if Kedon hits him on a long ball. If so, then it could be more on the receivers. If Kedon does not connect on any deep ball this Saturday, then the offense is going to be in more trouble than I thought.

Running backs, there are a plenty

BYU fans really had it good during the 2020 and 2021 seasons with Tyler Allgeier. He had vision. He knew how you cut upfield. He also ran behind several NFL linemen, which helped.

This year, we’re pretty confident that BYU has at least one NFL lineman. How the rest of the group performs and meshes is yet to be seen. We need a couple of games to know if we’re in trouble at running back because of the mediocrity of the offensive line.

LJ Martin looked great during his touches. I think it was mostly a sign of better run blocking, but if Aidan or Deion keep struggling the next week or two, then look to see LJ get 15-20 carries per game going forward and be the lead back. I expect Roderick and the offense to put the players on the field who will put BYU in the best position to win.

I still believe in Aidan and Deion, and then there is still some depth with and Miles Davis, though it took a blow with the Hinckley Ropati season ending injury news. I anticipate that Miles Davis will get a carry or two against Southern Utah. I think the depth is even better this year than in past years.

Uniforms

Those uniforms looked really good. While I still generally have my wagon hitched to the traditional navy top, white bottoms with blue stripes, and white helmet with the two blue stripes, I am slowly coming around to the alternative jerseys. This royal blue helmet had a nice shine, and it seemingly glimmered under the lights at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

Colorado – wow!

The best game of the week was the Colorado-TCU game. If you want a really good break down of this game, check out Joel Klatt’s breakdown. I watched almost every snap of this game, and it was abundantly obvious that Colorado came prepared and confident. And it showed when they went out and scored on their first drive. That confidence showed as they returned punch for punch. My jaw dropped when I saw The Travis Hunter interception near the goal line.

I’ve been a believer that Colorado is going to go to a bowl game this year and it’s going to cause some havoc within the Pac 12. They have three players with potential of getting into the Heisman conversation. If you were to award the Heisman after week, then Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter are both in New York among the top 5 candidates.

If Colorado gets to 5-1 or even 6-0, it would mean they’d have beaten Oregon and/or USC. Beating Oregon in Eugene is going to be a tall task, and I do not expect them to do that. (though, if they do, then you know they are a legitimate Pac-12 title contender). I like them to compete against USC and would mark that one on the calendar. 

At 5-1 or 6-0, then either Sanders or Hunter (or both) will be in the Heisman conversation. 

Colorado will impact the CFP

Take a look at the remaining Colorado schedule

They play 4 of the 5 conference giants (I excluded UCLA, but they could find themselves as a conference contender). They play 2 of them at home. I actually like Colorado against USC as a potential upset. It is going to be a matchup of two of the best quarterbacks in the country. Both defenses are average, so it is going to come down to who can make 1 or 2 key defensive stops, who has the ball last, and who can execute cleaner on offense.

I believe that Colorado will win at least 1 game against those 4 teams, possibly 2 games. Which means that they are likely to create 1 unexpected loss, and none of those 5 teams are likely to get through the Pac-12 undefeated. The conference is too deep.

TCU is still really good

While I don’t expect TCU to win the Big 12 (see #11 below), I do think they’ll be very competitive and be among the horses (or should I say frogs?) in the race. Their passing game was more efficient on Saturday than it was last year. While they had two costly interceptions right as they were about to score, one of those interceptions is not on Chandler Morris. It was simply a spectacular play by Travis Hunter.

TCU’s offense was really good. Their defense was better against the run than it was against the pass. It was quite poor against the pass. What does this mean for BYU?

Before the season started, I thought that we’d see BYU’s strength (offense) going against TCU’s strength (offense) in a shootout, though expecting TCU to win by 7-14 points. After week 1, I see it being a tighter game as BYU’s strength (defense) goes against TCU’s strength (offense). Both teams could struggle to score some.

Texas Tech and Baylor – yikes

Something is wrong at Baylor, and I do not know what it is. Baylor’s pass defense was not great. The worst it has been in 7 seasons. Their run defense was ok. I will say, I was digging the uniforms for both Baylor and Texas State. Texas State lost to Baylor 42-7 last year. Talk about coming back for revenge.

As for Texas Tech, BYU fans know how tough Laramie can be to play in. The Cowboys are not boys, they’re men. And BYU had an uncomfortable game against Wyoming last year. With Texas Tech playing against Oregon this week, could they fall to 0-2? If so, I still wouldn’t count them out of Big 12 conference contention yet. 

A random note, if I were a student at Texas Tech, I would seriously consider starting a rival to Tik Tok and call it Tich Tech. That, or create a new game called Tich Tech Toe…

Let’s see how good Sam Houston is

Returning temporarily back to BYU, before we completely lose our minds over BYU‘s performance against Sam Houston State, let’s pause and suspend our complete judgment for several weeks until we see how Sam Houston performs. The first week of the season will always provide plentiful opportunities for overreactions.

BYU’s offense needs to be better to win in the Big 12, but let’s see how good Sam Houston is before we start to see the “fire Roderick” posts on Cougarboard. Sam Houston plays Houston in week 4 for a battle of who owns Houston and the rights to be the most popular team with the name Houston in it. That will provide BYU fans another litmus test.

Remember that Sam Houston has a lot to gain this year as they move up from FCS to FBS. And clearly they have quality coaching.

Who is the upper class of the Big 12?

Texas was picked by most people to be the conference champion but we didn’t learn anything last week from their victory over fried Rice. We know the Longhorns are not horrible, but we’ll find out more this week when they play Alabama. We need to see two or three Big 12 games to know how they are going to perform for the season.

Oklahoma is still a TBD. Some people in Norman are likely excited by the defensive prospects after a 73-0 victory over Arkansas State. The votes are going to come in later on Oklahoma before we know where they land – their competition ramps up whilst Texas’ jumps straight up a wall.

Texas Tech was a dark horse in most preseason Big 12 polls. It felt a bit like group think. That is not to say that Texas Tech doesn’t deserve it. But, when everyone is trying to pick the next TCU and they all land on the same team, doesn’t that mean they are not the next TCU? TCU was picked last in 2022. So, by that same measure, we should expect to see BYU, West Virginia, Iowa State, or Houston (depending on the pollster). 

I’ve been on the fence with Texas Tech. I did think before the season that they’re going to beat BYU in Provo. Now I’m less confident about that but would still pick Texas Tech by less than 4 points over BYU.

If anyone was wondering if Baylor was gonna come back in 2023, they still could and be better than last year but they’re certainly not gonna be as good as they were in 2021. It’s a shame to see Baylor struggling so much right now. I really like them. Going to the game against Baylor in 2021 was an awesome experience. But something is going wacko in Waco (I couldn’t pass that up).

Kansas State – They might be the Penn State of the Big 12. The Big 12 has always been about Oklahoma and Texas, much like the Big Ten story is usually about Michigan and Ohio State. These are really good teams that most people forget. They beat one of the multi-directional state FCS teams pretty easily. Right now, if I had to pick who the best team in the Big 12 is, I would go with Kansas State.

I like TCU to win 8 to 10 games this year. I still am high on TCU being really competitive and really, really good.

The four incoming teams looked really good. UCF looked the best. Cincinnati was the next best looking. I would score Houston’s win over UTSA higher than BYU’s. Which means, I would actually put BYU at roughly 12th in the conference right now.

Clemson has an offensive problem

The offseason talk about Clemson was that their offense was going to be fixed this year because they brought in Garrett Riley from TCU and they were going to give the keys fully over to Cade Klubnik. I was on board with that assessment. But something simply is not clicking at Clemson, and it is not all on Garrett Riley, because this is going on at least 2 seasons now.

It has been well documented by many people, much more famous and smart than me, that this could be the fall of Clemson. In my mind, they already fell once, which was from the very top stop of the ladder where they were playing king of the hill with Alabama. Now, the question is if they are slipping from being another also ran. This could be one of those moments where it is literally happening right in front of your eyes and you do not recognize it until two seasons from now.

What is befuddling is the sheer amount of star (four and five) talent on that roster. That tells me there is something at the coaching and staff level that is off. Time will tell.

Data come courtesy of @cfbFastR