Bumped. Great insight from our friends from BYU. GO BRUINS. -N

Game Keys Nestor suggested I put some points I made in other threads into a fanpost. Like I said, I’m a BYU fan, but I try to stay balanced. Here’s my take on the game.

Keys for UCLA’s defense:

1. Your defensive line is the strength of your team and Dwayne better have a plan for those guys to break in and pressure Max Hall. If you can pressure Hall, it throws the rhythm of the offense off, and it’s all about rhythm.

2. As Tennessee found out, you have to account for the tight ends in this offense. Our offense is largely Norm Chowian with differences. Look at BYU games the past 3 years, and you’ll see tight ends playing a huge role. You need to account for Dennis Pitta and his very good backups.

3. You will probably stop the run. That’s a given. However, once it is stopped, don’t let Harvey Unga run behind the linebackers to catch balls. He’s got great hands and can plow through the smaller guys in the secondary (he’s also pretty shifty after the catch for such a big guy).

4. Craft is going to have to keep his head on straight. The BYU stadium will be sold out at around 64,000 fans, which is small compared to Rose Bowl capacity, but still a freaking loud stadium. He’s going to have to be patient and do everything Chow dials up for 4 quarters.

5. Your secondary is going to need to step up. I was waiting and waiting for Tennessee to exploit what I saw as a serious advantage, but Crompton (is that is name?) couldn’t deliver the dang ball. Max Hall won’t have that problem. He’s accurate and he knows the routes. Plus, BYUs Austin Collie is fast. A lot faster and bigger than people realize (remember what he did to your #1 corner in the Rose Bowl last year). Your secondary will really need to contain Collie and Reed and Pitta.

Keys for UCLA against BYU’s defense:

1. BYU plays a containment zone defense with wrinkles (occassional spurts of blitzes with man coverage, etc.). The secondary is built on the concepts of zone coverage and taking good angles to cover and tackle. One of my biggest concerns is that our young secondary hasn’t learned the angles of the defensive scheme (they know where to be, but tend to get caught taking bad angles), which was on full display Saturday against Washington. The key for UCLA to is to be patient. BYU doesn’t give up big plays very often, but if Craft can patiently execute Norm Chow’s game plan, they’ll move the ball up and down field.

2. Key plays. Not for lots of yardage, but just those key important plays. Craft has to deliver. You saw this with BYU against Washington. That game could have easily been a BYU route at 35-21 or 42-14, but Jake Locker found a way to convert on key 3rd downs and make the play needed to keep drives alive. UCLA made those plays in the 2nd half against Tennessee and will have to dig down deep to find that moxy to get it done. Look at BYU the past 2 years and they’ve got that moxy – it’s rare (the Rose Bowl last year) that they fail to deliver on key plays. It’s a shame by the way that the refs threw a flag on Locker for that ball toss. As soon as he threw it up (you never see guys throw the ball anymore), I thought, “Oh, crap, he’s going to get flagged!” And he did. I was bummed that it tarnished such a good game.

3. UCLA needs their offense to keep BYU on the field. The short passing game will be important. BYU corners play off the ball (wayyyy off the ball – I’m always screaming at Bronco about this but he never listens), so it will be important for UCLA receivers to make the short catches – no dropped balls, and no fumbles. If UCLA can hold the ball, BYU’s young defense will tire out and get frustrated. BYU’s game plan, though, is to wear you down mentally and force you to make those Key Plays. Locker delivered. Can Craft?

4. Run to the corners. I don’t know what speed you have at running back, but if you have any, get them to the corners and use some misdirection or reverses. BYU is full of sound defensive players, but we’re possibly the slowest defense in college football (that’s why we rely so much on zone and good angles). When speed is used wisely (and Norm Chow is wise), we can really struggle.

Well, that’s it. I live 3 hours south of Provo, but I’ll be up for the game with my season tickets. I’ve been in Salt Lake City the past couple of days for some job training and the radios are buzzing about this game. Most of what I’m hearing is that this is going to be a good, tight game. A lot of us BYU fans have been waiting for BYU’s offense to just unload on someone with a big name (kind of like Utah did to UCLA last year in Salt Lake), so sometimes you hear bold predictions about a blowout coming. But I think our defense is young and shaky enough and the UCLA defense powerful enough that this is going to be a hard-fought game.

Good luck to you Bruins. If Craft plays cool and follows Chow's game plan to the tee, this will be a battle.