Win over Stanford shows Bachmeier’s youth, defense’s dominance

Provo • A dense mist has rolled in over BYU football.

And in the fog of considering what we’re looking at here, in the haze of wondering how long it will be before BYU faces a decent enough opponent this season by which the Cougars can be properly measured — it certainly didn’t happen in the first two weeks at home against Portland State and Stanford, with a bye coming next — an important suspicion, falling short of an absolute conclusion, surfaced on Saturday night against the Cardinal. It was a profound sort of potential find in a 27-3 victory.

The Cougars’ coin seems to have flipped. Their identity has turned. Their personality has changed. Those 69 points BYU put on a winless FCS weakling last week were not the truth, it doesn’t appear to be. It was a mirage against a hapless defense that couldn’t have stopped your college intramural flag football team.

No. It was the zero at the other end of that count that appears to have mattered. That shutout was suspect since Portland the week before couldn’t score against Tarleton State, either. But the beating BYU’s defense put on Stanford at LaVell Edwards Stadium, a beating that pretty much saved the Cougars’ hide, and will likely be called upon to save it again in the weeks ahead, gave credence to the tilt that has occurred in Provo.

Defensive coordinator Jay Hill, apparently, is the master of his realm down here. BYU, apparently, is a defensive team now. Its offense, on its friendly field with hearty encouragement from a stadium filled with more Cougar fans than had showed up for any game at LaVell’s Place over the past 18 years couldn’t stack any sort of consistent success against a compromised opponent, even as the guys in blue on the other side of the ball gave it opportunity after opportunity to cash in, to run up the score.

It couldn’t.

You might think 27 points isn’t too bad, but, against this foe, it was south of stellar, especially with the help that was spoon-fed straight into its mug over and over by that aggressive, impressive D.

Kalani Sitake praised his defense in the aftermath, admitting that it may have eased up a bit near game’s end. “This defense is going to do some special things,” he correctly said. And he was kinder to his offense than he could have been, sensing that harshness is not what that fragile unit needed at this time from the big boss. He said he was “happy we got the win,” while also softly acknowledging what was obvious to anyone with eyes to see, namely that his offense stunk. My words, not his.

“We know we need to improve,” he said. “ … We had some misfortune when it came to killing drives. … A lot of the issues were mistakes on our end.”

He finished up with: “I want to score touchdowns.”

Those were in short supply against Stanford, much shorter than they should have been.

BYU’s offense did make a nice move down the field early on, mostly on the running of LJ Martin, driving 85 yards in six plays, punctuating the whole thing with what Sitake wants. An attempt for a 2-point conversion failed.

From that point, over an extended period, BYU’s resistance shined, serving up those scoring chances, but BYU’s O was more like its Oh-No.

An interception by safety Raider Damuni, returned 26 yards to the Stanford 17-yard line, tee’d up a prime shot at a touchdown. But that intention short-circuited, ending in bits of frustration, with a 36-yard field goal by Will Ferrin that tasted to the Cougars like flat soda.

A few minutes later, linebacker Jack Kelly punched loose a fumble on a sack at the Stanford 5-yard line, but, again, BYU stumbled and bumbled. The Cougars actually did score a TD, but a penalty nullified that, leading to another Ferrin field goal.

On those two gift-wrapped “drives,” BYU picked up one yard and then went in arrears, losing seven yards. Hardly the kind of performances that suggest a nitro-fueled attack, nothing to inspire or call into remembrance the ghosts of great offenses past at LES.

Freshman quarterback Bear Bachmeier played pretty much like a kid who was walking through high school halls just a few months ago. He looked uncomfortable, uncertain, and undone, rarely throwing downfield, either because he didn’t look there or because BYU coaches didn’t trust him enough to do so. He repeatedly checked down, throwing short, often ineffective passes, and/or he got rushed and sacked.

On subsequent Cougar possessions, set up all nice and tidy the way they were by the defense and by sweet punt returns, two of them commencing at midfield, went nowhere.

Another stellar collective defensive effort was highlighted when sophomore safety Faletau Satuala scored a safety, pumping BYU’s second-quarter lead to 14-0, a familiar score made up on the Cougars’ part with the touchdown, a failed 2-point try, the two field goals and the safety. Sitake noted the unusual path to his team’s points.

In the second half, BYU’s offense, still settling for kicking field goals, realized it might be a good idea to give the ball to Martin, which it did. The junior running back responded with 110 yards on 18 carries. Said Sitake: “LJ’s got great vision. We got to keep feeding him the ball.”

Bachmeier dialed in a bit, too, uncovering another bright idea — get the ball to Chase Roberts, who wound up with 84 receiving yards on five catches. A touchdown happened — no, really — late in the third quarter, boosting BYU’s lead to 24-0. Later on, the Cougars put together an eight-play, 69-yard drive, but they couldn’t get into the end zone, kicking instead — Is there an echo in here? — capping the scoring at 27-3.

Stanford’s lone score — an inconsequential late field goal — ticked off a defense that sought another shutout, and the pride it showed in preventing a touchdown demonstrated the overall spirit of what’s brewing with Hill’s crew. While the Cardinal picked up some meaningless yards after the game was clearly decided, back in the meat of the contest, they couldn’t pass it, couldn’t run it, couldn’t figure out any other way to cause the Cougars any harm.

They could punt it, which they did five times.

All told, Stanford gained just 161 yards, a mere 19 on the ground, and it turned the ball over three times. Its per-play average was limited to 2.9 yards.

It’s time to recognize, then, what might be happening with this iteration of BYU’s defense. Substantiation will come, as mentioned, when the Cougars actually stymy a good opponent. It’s weird to say it, though, and it may not please everyone around BYU, those who have grown accustomed to and been mesmerized by spinning balls through the air and points going berserk on the scoreboard.

But the primary form the Cougars are taking is not offensive, it’s more a defensive presence, an iron curtain, building on their stiff resistance from last season, when that side of the ball statistically hovered at the top of the Big 12.

Hill has rounded into one of the nation’s best defensive architects. That can be said with confidence. And why not? His pedigree stems back to his time at Utah, when he roamed the Ute defensive secondary. From there, he studied his craft and, as head coach at Weber State continued to learn. What he’s done at BYU should earn him what he eventually wants — a head coaching job at a quality program somewhere, somewhere where he can win.

As for this season’s Cougars, many determinations and declarative statements are on hold. The guess here is that that defense, led on the field as it is by Jack Kelly and Isaiah Glasker and Keanu Tanuvasa, among others, is real. It’s hard to say when Bachmeier will grow into what he’ll need to be for that offense to fully complement the defense. If he does, if it does, BYU could eventually pose an authentic threat to its better foes.

Until it faces them, perhaps not until the Cougars play the Utes in October, everyone will have to keep observing, keep judging, keep guessing, keep waiting on BYU football. As Saturday night’s game rolled out, many observers — present company included — were attempting to decide and discern exactly where on the Modified Stableford scale of scoring the Cougars sit.

Are they just OK, benefiting from the goofballs they’re playing? Are they kind of good? Are they legitimately good? Are they great? Could they become great?

To quote Nate Bargatze’s famously hilarious George Washington character describing America’s free declaration on designations for weights and measures: Nobody knows. (If you haven’t checked out that SNL clip, do so immediately. You can thank me later.)

In the meantime, sit back and patiently watch what happens with and to BYU — until the mist and the fog lift. We’ll all know when we know. Until then, we’ll guess.