BYU football executes better than expected with experience

PROVO — There were many question marks for BYU heading into Saturday's season-opening football game against Washington.

Most of them were related to youth and inexperience, and how those factors would translate to execution, efficiency and mistakes in the first game for many Cougars as starters in LaVell Edwards Stadium against one of the toughest quarterbacks to defend in the country.

The numbers don't lie.

The Cougars, in coming back from a 17-13 halftime deficit to defeat the Huskies 23-17, played a fairly clean and fundamentally sound game. That's not common in first games of the season for a team with BYU's makeup.

"I was very surprised at how clean this game was, lack of penalties and turnovers. That was surprising to me. I thought it would be a lot more volatile," BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said.

Turnovers for BYU? None. Penalties? Six for 60 yards. Red-zone scoring chances? Three for three. Fourth-down conversions? One for one. Total yards? A little more than 400. First downs? Twenty three.

You can dig through those numbers as much as you want and can't find much negative about a team that has been labeled "young and inexperienced" since camp opened a month ago.

If you want to get really detailed, you might find fault in a few dropped passes, a missed field goal from 40 yards by Mitch Payne, and the Cougars failing to stop the Huskies on a handful of key third downs in the first half — all on possessions in which the Huskies eventually scored.

"As far as our youth versus their relative experience, I think that we did exceptional. We haven't arrived yet, but I was pleased with how we played," Mendenhall said.

But it's hard to ignore the halftime adjustments that helped the Cougars hold Washington scoreless over the final two quarters. After the break, the Cougars held the Huskies to only 1 of 7 on third down conversions after failing to stop them on 4 of 8 third downs in the first half. On fourth-down attempts, the Cougars stopped Washington on all three of the Huskies' second-half attempts.

"We were doing well in the first half, but the big plays that they made there were some players who didn't do their job. But we saw the mistakes that we made and tried to tighten it up," said lineman Ethan Manumaleuna, who made a game-saving pass deflection late in the game.

Some halftime encouragement from defensive coordinator Jaimie Hill, which the Cougars took to heart, also helped.