BYU Football: Cougars effort concerning in season opener

There’s nothing about BYU football‘s victory over Portland State that should encourage Cougar fans before their matchup against No. 13 LSU next week.

BYU has a tough schedule in 2017. Their easiest opponent was Portland State and they were not able to take care of business in a convincing fashion. The Cougars turn around and face the LSU Tigers on September 2. A 14-point victory against Portland State sets up BYU for a rough outing against LSU.

Quarterback Tanner Mangum had an easy chance to get a boost to his stat line this weekend. He notched less than 200 yards and one touchdown. BYU’s offense was stagnant to start off the game and never really got off the schneid. The Cougars also did not have a rusher total more than 100 yards.

BYU could have a defense that carries them through the 2017 season. LSU’s offense has not been anything to brag about the last few seasons. Cougar and Tiger fans might be in store for a defensive battle. Mangum and LSU quarterback Danny Etling do not have much momentum or convincing confidence entering this game.

The running game kept BYU’s offense from going completely stagnant. Squally Canada nearly cleared the 100 yard mark. He also rushed for one touchdown. That is the key for BYU to manage the LSU front seven.

Since BYU was a 37 point favorite against Portland State, this was one of the surprising results of the day. However, the weekend was full of spreads that got blown out of the water.

It wasn’t just BYU that struggled

Colorado State was a 4-point favorite and beat Oregon State by 31 points. South Florida was put on upset alert against San Jose State in the first half as Charlie Strong took a while to get his team comfortable. Hawaii and UMass played the only close game of the day with the evening ending with a rout of the Rice Owls by Stanford.

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BYU could have cruised to the easiest victory. It could be a big indicator of things to come for Mangum and the BYU Cougars in 2017. A mediocre offense has little margin for error. One or two bad bounces and we could be talking about a Portland State upset today.