At 4-4, a cloud of disappointment is hanging over the
Brigham Young Cougars 2012 season. No
one in the BYU fan base will tell you this is one of the better Cougar football
teams. This didn’t stop upcoming opponent Georgia Tech’s head coach from showering
praise on BYU.
From his opening statements to the second to last question,
Paul Johnson found something very positive to say about BYU every time the
Cougars came up.
In his opening statements, Johnson said BYU would be a “huge
challenge.” He called BYU a “really, really good football team.” Johnson thinks
the Cougars are “a big physical team.” He made sure to include that BYU was “well-coached
and playing very well.”
When asked about playing a non-conference game at the end of
October, Johnson couldn’t stop from throwing two more compliments BYU’s way.
Johnson said, “I
haven’t thought that much about it; they’re just the next team on the schedule
and they’re very good so you just get ready to play them. You’d rather play
non-conference upfront, but certainly they have a good football team so it will
be a challenge.”
When it comes
to the BYU defense, Johnson really let loose. How can you blame him? The BYU
defense is “top 10 in just about every defensive category.”
That was no
hyperbole. Even after the lackluster showings against Notre Dame and Oregon State
- Scoring Defense: 8th,
- Rushing Defense: 8th,
- Passing Defense: 17th,
- Total Defense: 4th,
- Sacks: 7th,
- Tackles-for-loss: 6th,
- Opponents First Downs: 7th,
- Opponents Third Down
Conversions: 7th,
- Opponents Red Zone
Conversions: 3rd.
What may have
been hyperbole was his assessment of Ezekiel Ansah.
“They’ve got
the defensive end, Ezekiel Ansah, he is a heck of an athlete and is probably a
first round draft pick,” Johnson said.
The bottom line
is the BYU defense has caught Johnson’s eye.
Johnson gushed,
“I think they’re big and physical upfront, and so they can stop the run with
just the front seven, they don’t have to use the secondary. Then they give you
a lot of looks and they get you in third and long, a lot of blitzes, a lot of
zone fires, a lot of things that way. They’re good tacklers. … They’ve got guys
that can rush the passer, they can get pressure with three or four, and then
they’re able to drop into coverage and teams haven’t been able to run at all so
they get them in a lot of long yardage situations.”
Johnson also had
very complimentary things to say about quarterback Riley Nelson (click here).
The Cougars haven’t just caught Johnson’s eye on the field, they've done it off the field also.
“They’ll pass
the look test,” Johnson noted. “I played them many times when I was at the University of Hawaii
Johnson left Hawaii
Now that’s one
good (looking) team.
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