The defense for Texas looked pretty good, allowing less than one hundred total yards. Of course the North Texas offense is not great, but that is still impressive. Our defense gave up over three hundred yards to a less than stellar offense, and that is concerning. However, we did have both starting quarterbacks out, and that can't do anything but hurt a team's defense. Most of their offense was through the air and they had a hard time running the ball.
On the flip side we have the offenses. BYU's looked pretty good. Actually if you took out the penalties it looked great. It had more than three hundred yards in the air and over two hundred on the ground and that was without the star running back. Williams suffered a concussion in practice but is expected to play against the Longhorns. Their offense was good but not great. It racked up 350 total yards against a weak defense. Like BYU they did it in a balanced way: 190 in the air, 164 on the ground.
Now for the critical part the game changers, a QB comparison. Texas lost their starting QB David Ash who will not be able to play on Saturday. That means Swoopes will be starting. This will give BYU's secondary a break and put more pressure on our run defense that looked great in game one. I wish injury on no one but simply on paper it is an advantage for BYU. When you have to change quarterbacks like this it can hurt offensive cohesion. I think this run first quarterback bodes well for the Cougar's chances.
Taysom Hill played magnificent football in game one who completed over 75% of his passes with his 28/36 in the air and three TD's and no INT's. He also rushed for nearly a hundred yards. If they can hold down the turnovers this offense will be very impressive.
In conclusion Texas should be a good team this year and has been prepping for this game the entire off season but in the end I think the injury bug will be much to overcome. BYU's offense is very good and will be able to put up some point. Maybe not as much as last year but enough to make the difference. The Longhorn offense is in real trouble since their passer has been injured and they're going to have to rely on their running game. They will score some points, but will likely not be able to match Cougar's total.
My prediction is BYU 31 Texas 21.
Go Cougars.