The reasons are fairly obvious to anyone who watched the Knight offense gash BYU’s defense to the tune of 463 yards of total offense, which was almost 200 yards more than that same defense had yielded to teams prior. It played a significant factor in dealing the Cougars a 39-31 double overtime loss, and has most certainly been the main topic of discussion with Arizona State heading to Provo.

No, the Sun Devils haven’t been all that good this season, and will enter Saturday afternoon’s matchup with some big questions at quarterback, along the offensive front and several other areas. But that’s not to suggest that Arizona State, and its 4-3 overall record on the season won’t be presenting any problems for the Cougars come Halloween, and perhaps particularly at receiver where Reed Harris is having a breakout year and shooting up NFL draft boards.

“They have one of the best receivers in the country, and then another receiver, (Omarion Miller), that’s just as good as him, that maybe just doesn’t get the targets that (Reed Harris) gets,” evaluated BYU defensive coordinator Kelly Poppinga. “And then they have transfers from all over the country … they have a great receiver corps and a chance to spread the ball all over the place. So yeah, it’s, it’s a great challenge.”

Harris presents an athletic 6-foot-5 receiver that has created problems for opposing defenders throughout the season to the tune of 47 receptions for 800 yards, which has caused him to shoot up NFL draft boards. As for Miller, he’s caught 37 passes for 390 yards with both doing their collective damage despite the Sun Devil’s incurring quarterback issues that will lead up to ASU coach Kenny Dillingham most likely opting to start true freshman Jake Fette at quarterback this week.

And it’s not the best of timing for BYU to take on such an accomplished receiver duo, either. Gone from the lineup will be Evan Johnson who is the Cougar’s top cornerback due to an injury sustained during the very last play run by UCF last week.

The good news is that the Cougars can still field three established cornerbacks despite the loss of Johnson in the form of Therrian Alexander, Jayven Williams and Cannon DeVries, all three of whom have proved equal to the task this season. But it’s never just about the cornerback’s ability to cover man-on-man effectively, with Poppinga mentioning several other factors that have to be involved in order to limit ASU’s passing arsenal.

“The number one for us is we got to establish the line of scrimmage, and that was one thing we didn’t do (well) a week ago,” Poppinga said. “They were doing a lot of sideways football running around us. But still, there were some runs interiorly later there that got through. That has not been the issue for our team, so we’ve got to establish the run, and get them in situations where we know they’re going to pass so we can be able to get after the quarterback a little bit and hopefully take some stress off of the DBs by some pass rush.”

Also of issue is BYU’s inability to force turnovers recently while not having recorded a single interception for three straight games, although Poppinga believes that’s likely to change.

“It’s a crazy deal, and coaches are always looking for stats to make themselves feel better,” Poppinga said. “Last year as a, as a defense, we had 43 pass breakups as a whole defense for the whole entire year. Through seven games, we have 33 pass breakups. And so it’s not that the opportunities have been there. We just need to capitalize on them.”

On the other side of the football BYU will look to raise its offensive prospects despite running back LJ Martin being out of the lineup for a fourth straight week. Sure, the Cougars managed 24 points in regulation last week against the Knights, but did as much with not much of a rushing attack with quarterback Bear Bachmeier completing just 16 of his 32 passes for 257 while throwing an interception.

Despite all that, BYU offensive coordinator did see some things from his offense that encouraged him heading into this week’s matchup versus the Sun Devils.

“There’s no moral victories, but there were a lot of good things we did in the game,” Roderick said. “We played really well on third down again, and I thought we we had some explosive plays in the passing game and a couple explosive runs. It wasn’t our wasn’t our best rushing game for sure … but I thought we did a lot of good things and we scored on our first possession of the game, scored on our first possession of the second half, and scored on our first possession in overtime. You know, those were some positives.”

BYU will be going against an Arizona State team that can be exploited, however, as proven by Texas Tech and Baylor and their 53 and 55 points scored against the Sun Devils, respectively.

Overall it will be BYU’s opportunity to prove it’s much more the team that went 6-0 over the first half of the season while capturing a big win over Notre Dame that lifted the Cougars to a No. 2 national ranking rather than the team that took a somewhat surprising loss to UCF.

“I’m just really proud of how hard the guys played, proud of our leadership, and we’re going to need it more now,” Sitake concluded. “It was our first loss, but (I’m) looking forward to see how we react to it. In life things that happen to you, and you get to define by how you react to it. I don’t think (the loss to UCF is) going to define us in this season … I’m looking forward to getting back to work and focusing on the next challenge, which is Arizona State.”