Dominating your 1/11th: BYU defense taking on huge challenge at Texas Tech
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- BYU safety Tanner Wall (28) fires up his teammates before a Big 12 football game against Colorado at Folsom Field in Boulder on Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025.
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- BYU players gather around defensive coordinator Jay Hill on the field before the game against Southern Illinois at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024.
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- BYU’s John Taumoepeau (55) celebrates recovering a fumble against Portland State in a college football game at LaVell Edwards Stadium on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025.
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- BYU defenders Tanner Wall (28), Tre Alexander (1) and Evan Johnson (0) react during a college football game at East Carolina in Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025.
Sometimes when BYU’s Jay Hill is asked about his defense, he gets this look.
It’s a half-smile, half-smirk that seems to indicate he knows something the rest of us don’t.
There’s no question the defense has played a big role in the Cougars 8-0 start in 2025 and Hill is its grand architect. At first, it was overpowering against hapless Portland State and punchless Stanford. Since then, there have been breakdowns, followed by fourth down stops and turnovers at critical times. Coaches will tell you it’s all part of the “complementary football” approach, where each unit (offense, defense, special teams) picks each other up and does what needs to be done in each game.
It’s a formula BYU has followed to win eight straight games.
Despite giving up nearly 500 yards of offense to its past two opponents (Utah 470, Iowa State 495) the Cougars are still 15th in the country in scoring defense (17 points per game), and points rules all statistics.
Here is a statistical breakdown of BYU’s defensive performance for each game this season.
Portland State (69-0)
First downs allowed: 3
3rd downs: 1-13
4th downs: 0-0
Total Yards: 51
Passing: 56
Rushing: -5
Turnovers forced: 1
Stanford (27-3)
First downs allowed: 12
3rd downs: 2-13
4th downs: 2-3
Total Yards: 161
Passing: 142
Rushing: 19
Turnovers forced: 3
East Carolina (34-13)
First downs allowed: 24
3rd downs: 6-15
4th downs: 1-3
Total Yards: 404
Passing: 285
Rushing: 119
Turnovers forced: 2
Colorado (24-21)
First downs allowed: 17
3rd downs: 3-9
4th downs: 0-1
Total Yards: 291
Passing: 119
Rushing: 172
Turnovers forced: 1
West Virginia (38-24)
First downs allowed: 18
3rd downs: 7-15
4th downs: 0-2
Total Yards: 291
Passing: 135
Rushing: 156
Turnovers forced: 2
Arizona (33-27 OT)
First downs allowed: 23
3rd downs: 4-17
4th downs: 4-6
Total Yards: 383
Passing: 219
Rushing: 164
Turnovers forced: 1
Utah (24-21)
First downs allowed: 24
3rd downs: 5-12
4th downs: 1-5
Total Yards: 470
Passing: 244
Rushing: 226
Turnovers forced: 2
Iowa State (41-27)
First downs allowed: 24
3rd downs: 5-11
4th downs: 1-3
Total Yards: 495
Passing: 311
Rushing: 184
Turnovers forced: 4
Whatever Hill has cooked up in his head is working for the Cougars.
“We’ve just got to continue to be stout against the run,” he said. “That’s where we’ve had a little bit of problem I would say the last two weeks. There have been a couple of creases that we gave up that we’ve got to be better with. We’ve given up a few too many of those long drives, the 10-plus play drives. We can do a better job of getting out of drives early. That would just keep us fresher as the games wear on. But this is a tough, resilient defense, even when they’ve got their backs against the wall, they’ve shown up in the right times, and they’ve done that all year.”
Saturday presents the biggest challenge to Hill’s defense to date. Texas Tech is an offensive juggernaut, currently ranked fifth in the country in yards (492.3 per game) and tied for third in scoring (43.6). It’s margin of victory (26.6 points per game) is ranked No. 2 in the nation.
“They have very good players,” Hills said. “I think they’re good in every position group, from the O-line to the tight ends, running backs, receivers, and quarterback, they’re very balanced. They can run it, they can throw it. They’re veteran. They’ve got a lot of players that have played a lot of college football reps, so we definitely have our work cut out for us.”
BYU counters with pretty good defensive numbers: 318.2 yards allowed per game (27th), .317 third-down efficiency (15th), .491 fourth-down efficiency (24th) and a turnover margin (+1.25 per game) that is third in the country.
In addition, the Cougars will be at nearly full strength on defense with linebackers Jack Kelly, Isaiah Glasker, Siale Esera and safety Raider Damuni all using the bye week to recover from injuries.
“I think they’re healthier than they’ve been for the last three or four weeks, which is huge for us,” Hill said. “I don’t know that they’re 100% full go, but I don’t know that anybody at this stage of the season’s is 100%. I would say they’re better than they’ve been, but not like they were the first game of the season.”
Head coach Kalani Sitake addressed the whole team with a bit of a new philosophy during the bye week and Hill emphasized it again with his defense, as explained by senior safety Tanner Wall.
“I think a focus for us that came up after some of our Iowa St game review is shifting our mentality from the doing your 1/11th to the dominating your 1/11th,” Wall said. “It’s not good enough to just do your 1/11th, you’ve got to win your 1/11th.
“In that Iowa State game you could kind of see there was a huge contrast between the first 28 minutes and the last 32. It kind of looked like two different defenses out there for us, just in the way guys were winning their 1/11th, doing their job and doing it well. If everyone is doing their job and in the right spot, we have such a sound scheme and a defense that can limit big yardage plays and always put ourselves in good situations to win on third down.”
