Sunday Morning QB: 3 lessons from BYU's win over Idaho State


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PROVO — The BYU Cougars reached bowl eligibility Saturday with a win over Idaho State. While the victory was ensured quickly into the game the Cougars still struggled in many areas and showed off their deficiencies.

The Cougars beat the Bengals 42-10, but the win seemed to expose more problems than positives. Here are three lessons from BYU’s sixth win of the 2019 season:

Zach Wilson may be healthy, but he’s not back

Quarterback Zach Wilson has been out with a hand injury since BYU fell to Toledo on Sept. 28. Fans were excited to see the young quarterback back in action, but he didn’t appear to be the same Wilson that put on a show with his arm and legs against USC and Tennessee.

Wilson looked timid in the pocket and seemed reluctant to make throws. His release was slow and his accuracy off. Something that has been great about Wilson is his confidence, but that seemed MIA on Saturday in Provo.

Wilson ended the day 19-of-31 with 187 yards, two touchdowns and a pick. The numbers were fine against a struggling Idaho State, but it needs to improve. We should cut Wilson some slack as he has been away from game speed for seven weeks and Idaho State was a nice warm up to get back into things, but the confident Wilson we remember from the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl needs to make a comeback.

Where is the discipline?

Kalani Sitake teams have always struggled with discipline on the field, but Saturday seemed like a disaster.

BYU had 12 penalizes for 85 yards and many of those penalties negated big plays. In particular it took away a phenomenal one-handed catch from Micah Simon. False starts, holds and off sides seemed to be more common than completions and tackles for loss.

BYU has struggled with penalties all year long.It’s to be expected early in the year, but as the team becomes more experienced and disciplined penalties should start to dissipate, but that has not been the case for the 2019 Cougars.

On top of penalties BYU also seemed to make costly errors with lack of execution that we should not be seeing this late in the season and especially against a team like Idaho State.

Sitake is sticking around

Coach Kalani Sitake has had an up and down year. He dropped yet another game to rival Utah, but then managed to beat the only team the Utes have lost to. His team laid an egg against Washington then managed to lost two very winnable games against Toledo and USF. Then he managed tot urn things around and beat the 14th ranked Boise State Broncos with a third string quarterback and hand them their only loss of the season.

Sitake has brought both great joy and misery to Cougar nation this year, but with a another bowl season under his belt and a few solid wins not he year it appears he’s not going anywhere.

After the win on Saturday that will send the Cougars to Hawaii on Christmas Eve athletic director Tom Holmoe removed his dress shirt int he locker room with the team to reveal a t shirt with the words, "#Extend Kalani" scrawled on it.

The players love Sitake and he is a proven recruiter. His team’s do seem to lack discipline and the Cougars seem to lose games they should win and win games people think they have no business even competing in. But Sitake is still a young head coach and while things have been fairly positive he still has yet to reach his potential and Cougar nation hopes that will happen with this new extension.

Up next for the Cougars is an away match with UMass on Saturday, Nov. 232 at 10 am. Then BYU will face Sand Diego State in California for the last game of the regular season.

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John has grown up around movies and annoys friends and family with his movie facts and knowledge. He also has a passion for sports and pretty much anything awesome, and it just so happens, that these are the three things he writes about.

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