BYU football: Bumbling Cougars enter bye week with one of the worst offenses in the country

Provo • Not counting the years when it was known as Brigham Young Academy and used high school players, Brigham Young University played its 1,000th football game in school history on Saturday afternoon, losing 40-6 to No. 10 Wisconsin.

In many ways, it looked like it was playing its first.

The Cougars (1-3 in 2017, 565-409-26 since 1922) were outclassed in the trenches, at quarterback, at running back and receiver, and on special teams. Their cornerbacks and safeties played so poorly that they were called out by head coach Kalani Sitake, who was visibly frustrated, almost distraught, in his post game news conference.

“Disappointed about the result, obviously,” Sitake said, after crediting Wisconsin for looking and playing like one of the country’s best teams. “That’s the type of team we aspire to be.”

Through four games — a tougher-than-expected 20-6 win over the Big Sky’s Portland State and losses to upper-level Power 5 schools LSU, Utah and Wisconsin in which they were dominated statistically in all three and on the scoreboard in two of the three — the Cougars have dropped to No. 70 in Jeff Sagarin’s College Football Ratings.

Statistically, they are much worse than that.

“BYU is abominable,” tweeted Pac-12 Hotline newsletter author Jon Wilner, in the context of noting that the Utes haven’t defeated a good team yet.

Only two Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) teams in the country — UTEP and Georgia Southern — have fewer yards per game than the Cougars. BYU ranks 127th in total offense (221.8 ypg.), 126th in scoring (9.8 ppg.), 119th in passing (144.3 ypg.) and 123rd in rushing (77.7 ypg.).

The Cougars are 127th in time of possession and dead last, 129th, in first downs per game, 10.75.

“It is hard [to get the offense going] on days like today when we only have 20 minutes of possession,” BYU receiver Micah Simon said. “It is tough to try and really get things going. We had a few good, long drives. … I think we are still just trying to work things out. We’ll learn from it and we’ll be fine.”

It is also difficult when you are breaking in a new quarterback in the fourth game of the season against a top-10 team, but that’s what the Cougars dealt with on Saturday.

Starter Tanner Mangum could only watch from the sidelines, his injured left ankle in a protective boot and propped on a scooter because he can’t put any weight on it yet. In a best-case scenario, the junior will be back to play against the next Power 5 opponent on BYU’s schedule, Mississippi State, on Oct. 14. More realistically, he will be back for the Oct. 28 home game against San Jose State.

Remember that LSU team that walloped the Cougars 27-0 back on Sept. 2? It lost 37-7 Saturday night to MSU.

Mangum’s replacement, redshirt sophomore Beau Hoge, showed his running ability at times against the Badgers and threw a 50-yard pass on the run to Simon, but generally had a dismal first start. He threw an interception on his first pass and fumbled the ball out of the end zone on his last play for a UW safety.

“He played against a great defense in his first career start,” said tight end Matt Bushman. “There are things to get better at for all of us, and I think he tried his best. He was just trying to do what the coaches were telling him to do. He messed up a few times, but we all messed up a few times. There’s no one to blame. We all just need to do better these next two weeks.”

Bushman said two weeks because the Cougars won’t play again until Sept. 29, at Utah State.

Byes in September aren’t optimal, but BYU really, really needs one right now, Sitake said.

“Third downs, time of possession, turnover margin, there are lots of things we need to improve on,” he said. “The bye comes at a good time. We have to evaluate some things. We have a lot more games left in the season. We gotta find ways to win some.”

Getting an awful offense on track would be a good start.