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BYU Looks to Keep Bowl Dreams Alive in Fort Collins





At 4-5 with three games left the Cougars look to get to 6 wins before they face Utah in their season finale.  They face off against the 3-7 Colorado State Rams this weekend in Fort Collins.  The Rams have been exceptional at home this season at 3-1.  The lone loss was to TCU, who was held to their season low of 27 points in that game.  On the road the Cougars are 0-4 and have not scored more then 16 points.  Steve Fairchild said with a smirk on the Steve Fairchild Show that he is ready to send the Cougars off will a loss before they go independent next year.

This game will feature an freshman quarterback battle with Jake Heaps taking snaps for the Cougars and Pete Thomas for the Rams.  Let's take a quick look at some stats with the two freshman play callers.

Catagory Jake Heaps Pete Thomas
Games 9 10
Completion % 53.3 66.1
Yards Per Game 150.1 227.3
Yards/Attempt 5.2 7.2
TD - INT 4 - 7 10-10

 

Thomas also leads in yards with 2273 to 1351, but Heaps does have about 65 less attempts.  Looking at Heaps he seems to be turning it around after four straight weeks of not throwing a TD he has thrown three in the last two weeks.  Thomas seems to be the better freshman quarterback at this point though.  His home stats are pretty good. 7-1 TD Int ratio, 70.2 completion percentage, and 247 yards per game all over four games.   Heaps on the road is not so good, but Thomas take a big hit for his road games too.

The Rams will look to bottle up JJ Di Luigi forcing Heaps to win the game on the road.   De Luigi is averaging 5.2 yards per carry this year.  Mychal Sisson, Ricky Brewer, and Michael Kawulok will look to slow him down from the linebacker spot.  Alex Williams looks to be done for the year with a knee injury from last weeks game.  The Cougars will have to keep an eye on Guy Miller or Heaps could have a long day.

The Cougars will have to hope the CSU running game doesn't show up which is a possibility.  The Rams have been spotty running the ball and no big surprise they lose most of the games when they run poorly.  I would look for Leonard Mason to get the bulk of the carries as he has been the best back so far and is having his senior day.    Vic So'oto will look to keep the Rams in the back field as he leads the Cougars with 7 tackles for loss.

I hope the Rams destroy the Cougars in their last meeting at Hughes Stadium, its no secret around Fort Collins and probably the Mountain West that no one likes BYU.  Here is to ruining the Cougars bowl chances on Saturday!