While I was right about the final outcome of this game, I was way off about some of my other predictions about this afternoon.
I said Notre Dame wouldn't be able to run on BYU. The Cougars gave up 270 yards on the ground for 6.3 yards a carry. Beyond that, Notre Dame had zero intention of passing the ball in the second half (three attempts through the air. THREE!) and BYU had no ability to stop them.
I said BYU would lose by 10 if the defense could play well. BYU's defense played about where I expected them to (just the other way around) and the offense was better that I expected.
I said the offense would struggle mightily, and for one half, I was wrong. 14 points in two quarters against an Irish defense that hadn't given up a touchdown since September is pretty great. Zero points in quarters three and four is not great. Williams played well, averaging 4.6 yards a carry, but didn't get many looks in the final quarter.
Other thoughts:
1. I am incredibly frustrated that after BYU's quarterback recruiting the last few years, we're left with fullback Riley Nelson as our starting QB. This is either insanely bad luck or bad coaching.
2. Despite the fact that it's not Riley's fault he's starting (probably), he is terrible. I counted four or five good passes from him today; the rest were pretty much garbage. The misses were way off (Hoffman running free in the Irish secondary in the fourth quarter) and most of the completions were not easy catches for the receivers. At least he took sacks today instead of throwing wounded ducks into triple coverage.
3. I'm tired of moral victories. BYU has a better fanbase than this. Getting 60,000 plus fans to every home game, getting great TV ratings for home games... we deserve more than a middling team. And if this keeps up in the long term, I expect fans to start jumping ship.
Thank goodness Utah isn't any good this year, either.
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