BYU freshman QB Joe Critchlow struggles mightily in second career start

Provo • Freshman quarterback Joe Critchlow played better than could be expected in the first start of his college career last week at UNLV.

In his second start, not so much.

The returned missionary from Tennessee played Saturday like most people thought he would in his debut, and suffered through a nightmarish performance at LaVell Edwards Stadium as the Cougars fell 16-10 to UMass in front of 51,355 in the final home game of a miserable season.

“For me personally I feel like I made quite a few mistakes on the field tonight,” Critchlow said. “Next week will be a good week to learn a lot and to improve, especially heading into next year.”

Critchlow opened the game with four straight incompletions, then was intercepted by UMass’ Lee Moses on his fifth throw.

“We put pressure on their young quarterback and got an early pick,” said UMass coach Mark Whipple. “Credit to BYU, they kept making plays and their quarterback kept fighting.”

But he kept throwing picks, too, finishing with four after not throwing one against the Rebels.

Facing a relentless UMass blitz, Critchlow struggled in the pocket and was sacked seven times for minus-46 yards. He finished 21 of 45 for 257 yards and a touchdown, but had just 86 passing yards through three quarters.

“Obviously, I failed to recognize quite a few blitzes that came my way, and I failed to make a few throws in the face of those blitzes,” Critchlow said. “But I felt like us throwing the ball a lot more allowed them to blitz me and key on me. We had to pass the ball a lot tonight. And I feel like as we move forward we can learn from that and we can do better.”

BYU coach Kalani Sitake said giving another QB a chance — perhaps fellow freshman Kody Wilstead — was discussed, but the time wasn’t right to throw in another inexperienced freshman.

“We made the decisions that we made,” Sitake said. “Without getting into specifics, I think Joe was the best option for us at the time.”

Critchlow basically entered the season as BYU’s fifth-string QB, having returned from a church mission in June, and it showed. The Minutemen obviously studied the UNLV game film and devised a blitzing scheme that had Critchlow confused most of the game.

“We gave up a lot of sacks,” Sitake said. “There were a few that were because of the protection, but there were a few that he just brought it upon himself and scrambled when he probably should have stepped up, and things like that.”