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West Virginia's Devon Carter, right, is forced out of bounds by BYU's Eddie Heckard during the first half of an NCAA college football game on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023, in Morgantown, W.Va. West Virginia won 37-7. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson)

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West Virginia's Kole Taylor (87) drags BYU's Jakob Johnson (0) into the end zone for a touchdown during the second half of an NCAA college football game on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023, in Morgantown, W.Va. West Virginia won 37-7. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson)

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West Virginia's Preston Fox, top center, catches a touchdown over BYU's Kamden Garrett (7) during the first half of an NCAA college football game on Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023, in Morgantown, W.Va. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson)

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BYU senior linebacker Max Tooley didn’t enjoy watching the film from last week’s 37-7 loss at West Virginia but it was something that had to be done.

“We watched most of the film as a defensive unit and that was kind of good,” Tooley said Tuesday after practice. “Obviously it was embarrassing to see the mistakes we made and getting just flat out out-physicaled in most aspects. But it was kind of good to look at it in a different perspective as the whole unit. We were able to collaborate a little bit together, just see things all together and see the bigger picture. Anytime you have an embarrassing loss, it’s kind of hard to watch film.”

Tooley said that different coaches have different approaches but he felt the current Cougar defensive staff “took a good approach to focus on the things we need to improve and things we need to change altogether.”

But although BYU has already played nine games in 2023, Tooley and the other veterans are still having to work hard to readjust their instincts under first-year defensive coordinator Jay Hill.

“Even in the last couple of weeks, I’ve mentioned it to other guys who have been around for a while,” Tooley said. “It’s been a learning curve to get the right mindset going from more of a fit technique defense to a more aggressive, downhill, gap-sound defense. It’s taken some getting used to, as has the way our defensive staff coaches compared to our last staff. There a lot of a lot of differences in the way the program is being run.”

He admitted that the change hasn’t always gone smoothly, despite his desire to excel under Hill’s directives.

“Being around the same guys and same coaches for five years before, it’s been an adjustment,” Tooley said. “But I love them. I see what they what they’re trying to do and I respect them. I’m just going to trust what they have to coach and teach me up.”

Hill emphasized that he doesn’t believe in excuses but acknowledged that players are still honing their instincts to do things his way.

“I’ll put the blame squarely on myself because it’s my job to get these guys ready to play at a high level,” Hill said. “And I’ll never use that as an excuse. The reality is that we’ve got to continue to get better at executing this scheme. It’s complicated scheme. There’s been times where we’ve executed it well, but it’s been a little bit inconsistent at times.

“It’s my job to get us consistent. It’s my job to continue to recruit the right players into this system. And it’s my job to get a product on the field that the fans and the administrators and everybody can be proud of.”

The inconsistencies, however, have been something that has weighed heavily on him as he has worked to get the BYU defense to improve.

“We looked better for a couple of weeks at stopping the run — and then last week we weren’t very good,” Hill said. “There have been weeks where we’ve been really good stopping the pass, and then the next week we’re not as good as we need to be. Those inconsistencies need to be cleaned up.”

In the most recent loss, Hill said the biggest disappointment was that he didn’t see his guys rise to the level of the opposition.

“I think the biggest thing that showed up in that last game of West Virginia we just we didn’t compete like we had in the previous weeks,” Hill said. “Nobody ever wants to have a game like that. Whether it was back-to-back road games or whatever it was, we just didn’t compete the way we had been expected to.”

He said that he liked the fight he saw from his guys in the loss at Texas the week before, calling it “one of our most competitive toughest games that we had played” but said to not see that against the Mountaineers was “disappointing.”

Tooley said that he’s confident he will see the BYU defenders rally back and show more fight when BYU hosts Iowa State at LaVell Edwards Stadium on Saturday night (8:15 p.m. MT, ESPN).

“I think it takes a belief as a whole defensively and offensively and ultimately as a full team to just keep fighting,” Tooley said. “Anything can happen in a college football game.”