Halftime Report: Lobo's smart, BYU fishing

The first half ended with BYU ahead 7-3 but the story of the first two quarters was the Lobo’s finding a game plan that worked and the Cougars unsettled on a plan of attack.

The Lobo rushing game, the best the Cougar defense has faced, pounded away on long drives that resulted in just one field goal after Jan Jorgensen ended up with a fumble recovery.

But on offense, BYU appeared to want to challenge UNM’s secondary, almost to a fault, with the wide receivers Austin Collie and Michael Reed.

After that strategy blew up in the first scoreless quarter of the season, Robert Anae, forced with his back to the wall, started to used Harvey Unga and pound the ball at the Lobos. That resulted in BYU’s first score, a short pass to Andrew George.

But with a chance to go ahead 14-3 in the closing minutes of the first half, Hall went back to the wide receivers and they were covered solidly by the Lobo corners. Austin Collie’s pass interference call in the end zone was an example of that forced strategy.

BYU ended the half in frustration, throwing five incomplete passes towards Reed and Collie, one successful completion to George and five successful rushes by Unga on runs of 7. 10, 4,4,3 and 3 yards. The incompletions, count them, were four in a row to the wideouts to end that possession in the closing seconds of the fourth quarter after having a first and 10 at the Lobo 17.

I’d say, in the second half, BYU ought to attack with the tight ends and Unga until something shakes with Collie and Reed. Right now that latter ploy is getting checked very well by UNM.

BYU challenged UNM with just one run play in the first quarter, a handoff to Collie. The Cougars didn’t start handing the ball off to Unga until 11:40 in the second quarter. The result? Unga gained 51 yards on 11 carries. Conversely, the Lobos handed the ball off to Rodney Ferguson, the leagues’ leading rusher, 15 times in the first half and he gained 71 yards or 4.7 yards per carry. Unga averaged 4.6 yards per carry but was absent in the game plan for a quarter.

Go figure.