Did Cougars help themselves with speed?

Is BYU closer to a BCS game or just treading water?

Some would argue that BYU lacks the speed to make it to a BCS game. Others would argue 11-2, 11-2 and 10-3 show a level of consistency, the best of all non-BCS automatic qualifiers the past three years and it’s only a matter of time.

Bronco Mendenhall believes that almost every football game boils down to three or four plays and that executing at a high level on those plays is the difference between walking off the field a winner or a loser.

I can’t remember a time BYU football has ever featured speed on defense or offense from sideline to sideline and over the years, the program has been pretty consistent in getting ranked and winning championships. What makes the difference is fielding football players who transcend 40 times by playing smart, taking angles and being better prepared to execute. That has always been BYU’s competitive advantage – never speed.

I get the speed argument. But there are a lot of speedy defenders who play stupid. Look at San Diego State defenses over the years. They’ve had a lot of 4.3 guys get waxed up and down the field.

You still want some speed, but there is individual speed and team speed. BYU will have some individual quickness, but the team collective has to overcome the lack of team speed.

I think a defense can help itself immensely with increased speed at corner and linebacker. If corners can play a little tighter and a linebacker can gain a step on a blitz, a defense is faster. I think BYU got that in this class with Lee Aguirre, Brian Logan and Jordan Atkinson.

I’ll give you an example of something taking place behind the scenes right now that will enable BYU to play better defensively with pretty much the same bodies in place this year, minus two safeties, David Tafuna and Kellen Fowler. This is something lacking this past year and should be better in 2009.

Middle linebacker Matt Bauman has a 3.9 GPA in finance. Scott Johnson is almost perfect in the classroom in premed. Fowler had already been accepted to the university of Virginia law school before two-a-days began last year. They are braniacs. They are smart.

But like many BYU defensive players last year, they were not exactly football smart. They were inexperienced and didn’t have the football smarts developed over time by Quinn Gooch, Bryan Kehl and others from that 2007 defense, which took note of how to prepare for a game from Cameron Jensen and John Beck. Those guys were football smart. They did much of it on their own time and dime.

Why? Because they took extensive time to look at film and break down an opponent’s tendencies, formations, plays and keys. By the time these guys faced the scout team before a game, they knew exactly what the opponent was going to do because they’ studied, on their own time, every facet of what a foe would do. Jensen would often bark out the play the scout team would run before the ball was snapped. This gave the others around him great confidence and he literally lifted the rest of the defenders emotionally and mentally.

When you are confused, you don’t know an assignment, or are unsure of a read or play an opponent is throwing at you, you hesitate and you immediately take away any advantage your defensive call may have had. Even a split second of paralysis can lead to poor execution and you look slower than you should be.

Of course, you still have to have talent and skill, but lets face it, Cameron Jensen was not the quickest linebacker on the team and his stay in the NFL was short. But what he lacked in footspeed, he made up for in preparation in taking angles, timing and execution because he processed knowledge that made him confident.

Here’s the rub.

Both Jensen and Bryan Kehl are taking time this winter and spring to volunteer personal time with BYU’s returning defensive players. They are showing them how it is done in the film room, what to look for, how to best use precious time, how to team-up on getting knowledge and then apply it to the practice field: Football smarts.

When and how this surfaces and makes itself known as a positive is a guess, but the fact it is taking place should put this defense clearly in a slot to improve on a lot of mistakes last year that made it look slow, confused, out of position and out of sync. And look slow.