BYU fans should well remember the results of the 3-3-5 defense when Bronco Mendenhall brought it from New Mexico in 2003. BYU defenses had lock-down performances against Georgia Tech (13 pts), New Mexico (7 pts), and Utah (3 pts, unbelievably in a loss). Unfortunately, the defense also got steam-rolled by Colorado State (58 pts), San Diego State (36 pts), Boise State (50 pts) and Notre Dame (33 pts). There weren’t many in-between performances with that defense. Fans could expect a near shutout or a blowout. As BYU takes the field against UNM tomorrow night at 6:30 MT on CSTV, they will face that familiar 3-3-5 defense–a defense that could cause some big problems…or leave some huge gaps to exploit.

The Lobos’ defense has traditionally been a consistently good unit from year to year; however, this year’s Lobo defense thus far hasn’t revealed too much on paper about their prowess. Despite a solid 3-1 record, New Mexico has surrendered an average of 341 yards per game to mostly average competition. Their run defense, as Peter mentioned yesterday is 14th in the nation at 71 ypg, but is that the result of shutting down the run or forcing mediocre opponents to play from behind and throw the ball a lot? One could argue that BYU is the first real test for New Mexico’s defense, so we’ll see…

One thing is for sure, New Mexico’s defense plays with its collective hair on fire. They love to blitz, fly around and make things happen. New Mexico also knows that Air Force forced a Max Hall fumble on a blitz that the Falcons hadn’t shown previously. You can bet New Mexico has drawn up some new blitzes in practice this week and they’ll be itching to spring them on an offensive line and running back corp that has been playing catch-up in blitz protection through the first four games of the season.

BYU’s offense needs to get ahead of the curve and show that they can handle formations, coverages, and blitzes that they haven’t already seen on film. Either the protection needs to get better or BYU needs to limit the number of down-field shots they take in the passing game, thus allowing the defense precious extra seconds to get to Hall. As the Playstation incarnation of Lee Corso likes to say when I get too greedy throwing down-field and get sacked, “Everyone knows the best way to slow down a blitz is to run screens and draws!” (I’ve heard that, um, a few times…) BYU can get their big gains this week simply by beating the UNM blitzes with short throws and runs into space vacated by the blitz.

On the other side of the ball, BYU’s defense has their biggest challenge of the season to date in New Mexico. UNM sports a brutal trifecta of a mobile QB with a good arm, two tall and speedy wideouts and an effective, bruising running back (I’m counting the wideouts as one part of the trifecta, just to clear that up). Normally BYU’s defense is able to key in on a particular strength of the opponent’s offense because they are lacking in another category. Not so with this game. The secondary is going to have to hold their own while the front seven deal with Porterie’s mobility and Ferguson’s ability to pound the rock.

I admit that I’m nervous somewhat where the safeties are concerned, given that they had major trouble reading Tulsa’s misdirection and play-action and even got duped a couple of times by Air Force on play-action passes. If I had to pick my poison in this game, I’d have the safeties read pass on every play and leave it up to the linebackers to clean up on the run game. I don’t think New Mexico can win this game unless they get over the top just like Tulsa did.

In any case, I’m very excited to see how BYU handles their first bona fide test in MWC play. I’ll go ahead and call a BYU win by the score of 37-24.