3 takeaways from BYU football’s season-opening win over Sam Houston

The BYU Cougars didn’t exactly start their Big 12 era off with a bang Saturday night at LaVell Edwards Stadium, but they did just enough to beat the Sam Houston Bearkats 14-0.

Through the first five minutes, it looked like the Cougars might win rather easily, but the next 55 minutes were mostly a slog as BYU escaped against a Bearkats team that was playing its first-ever game as an FBS program.

Here are three takeaways from the Cougars’ win.

The BYU defense played well

For as much as the prevailing storyline from the game will surely be how much BYU struggled offensively, its defense acquitted itself very well in pitching the shutout.

The defensive side of the ball certainly had more question marks during fall camp than the offensive side under first-year defensive coordinator Jay Hill, but the unit was visibly solid, even as it was clear the Bearkat offense wasn’t going to provide much of a challenge.

All of it amounted to the first BYU shutout since 2014 (Savannah State), and its first shutout of an FBS opponent since 2012 (Hawaii).

Cornerback Jakob Robinson was the star for the Cougars defensively Saturday, as he finished with two interceptions, including one in the end zone that stopped by far Sam Houston’s most promising possession of the night (the second was a controversial call that ultimately resulted in BYU’s second touchdown).

On the evening, Sam Houston tallied just 185 yards of total offense went just 2 of 14 on third down as Max Tooley and Ben Bywater led the way in the tackles department with nine apiece.

The offense struggled mightily

There has been plenty of talk that the BYU offense could be potent this season, led by transfer quarterback Kedon Slovis.

Early Saturday, the Cougars backed that talk up, as they marched 50 yards in eight plays to go up 7-0 at the 10:39 mark of the first quarter.

After that though, BYU was quite bad when it had the ball. Slovis finished with just 145 passing yards with no passing touchdowns (he did rush for both of the Cougars’ scores, his first rushing touchdowns of his career).

By a large margin, the brightest spot for BYU offensively was true freshman running back LJ Martin. In his first collegiate game, Martin didn’t see action in the first half, but with the Cougars sputtering he entered the game in the third quarter and provided an immediate spark.

Martin finished with 91 rushing yards on 16 carries, which was in contrast to the 21 yards on 17 carries from the rest of the team.

Penalties and punting

Penalties hurt BYU throughout the night in all three phases of the game, as they finished with eight flags on them for 66 yards.

With the exception of a very ill-advised fake punt attempt, punter Ryan Rehkow was the bright spot before Martin’s emergence, as he punted a whopping nine times for 479 yards, with his longest being a 65-yarder (Sam Houston’s Jadon Cardell punted 10 times for 425 yards).