BYU Cougars vs San Diego State Aztecs Football Preview

Saturday at LaVell Edwards Stadium, the people who cheer for the BYU Cougar football team might not know what to do.

It's going to be a strange sort of Saturday for the Cougars' loyal fan base, which has the misfortune of seeing one of the worst BYU teams to take the field in quite some time. The Cougars aren't just 1-4 on the year, they're a bad 1-4. BYU has lost its four games by an average of 18.5 points, wilting in the second halves of games and generally failing to do anything of consequence on offense.

Local bloggers and beat writers in and around the program have said that this group of BYU receivers is one of the least talented in school history. In last Friday's 31-16 loss at Utah State, Cougar wideouts dropped at least six passes and misjudged several other aerials from the right arm of freshman quarterback Jake Heaps, who is undergoing his own learning process but is playing a lot better than his numbers might suggest. Heaps threw 55 passes against Utah State and completed only 27 (under 50 percent), but had his pass catchers done their jobs, Heaps probably would have hit 35 of his throws. Yes, the receiving for the Cougars has been that abysmal to this point in the 2010 season. It's hard to imagine that the same school which was a quarterback factory in the 1980s and has still cranked out solid passers in recent years (John Beck and Max Hall) is now so impotent and lifeless on offense. Heaps is young and raw, but it's still a stunner to realize that BYU hasn't scored more than 16 points in a game since its opener against Washington on Sept. 4.

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The other part of the strange feel that will envelop Provo, Utah, this weekend comes from the other side of the divide. San Diego State is 3-1 and is favored by five points, but we really don't know what to expect from the Aztecs under Coach Brady Hoke. SDSU ranks in the top 24 in each of the four bread-and-butter metrics for offense and defense: 13th in pass offense, 24th in rush offense, 15th in scoring offense, 9th in scoring defense. Yet, the Aztecs haven't played anybody. Nicholls State comes from the FCS (that was win number one for SDSU), New Mexico State is a bottom-rung FBS program (win number two), and Utah State - though competitive against good teams - has also bottomed out against so-so opponents this year as well. Until we know more about Utah State, we won't know quite as much about SDSU's 41-7 win over those very same Aggies. SDSU's one loss came at Missouri, and though the Aztecs outplayed the Tigers, they didn't finish them off.

One gets the sense that if San Diego State doesn't grab a big early lead, BYU could hang around and score... wait for it... an "upset."

That's not what BYU fans are used to reading when San Diego State is the opponent.

As we said, this is all so very strange, isn't it?

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer