Utah's season and fans' expectations took a brutal blow last Saturday, as BYU thoroughly outplayed the Utes in all phases en route to a comfortable Cougars win. It was ugly- it WAS ugly. And yet Utah continues to be heavily favored against San Diego State and has held on to decent advanced metric rankings.

So how did they lose so bad and still not dip in the rankings? The key was Utah's average performance was solid, but their performance on high leverage plays was abysmal.

A high leverage play is a play where the difference between success and failure is large and a lot of points are added or lost. 3rd and 9 is a high leverage play- if an offense converts it, they get a big bump in the expected points on the drive. 3rd and 1 is, too- if the defense gets an unlikely stop, it can transform a game. And it's hard to script a team doing worse than Utah on these plays last week.

Utah was on offense for 16 high leverage plays and succeeded on just 5 of them, 31%. BYU had 20 high leverage plays on offense and succeeded on 12 of them for a whopping 60% success rate. These 36 plays defined the game, and overrode an average performance that would have suggested a moderately comfortable Utah win- promising efficiency stats like 5.7 yards per carry and 57% pass completion. None of that matters if you're getting stopped, and not getting stops, on the plays that matter most.

Performance on high leverage plays is not a good indicator of future performance, and is often at the heart of big upsets like last week. It's virtually impossible to shake them from your head, however. You'll remember Jaren Hall's 4th down scramble for a lot longer than you'll remember 2 yard gains on first down.

The advanced metrics expect Utah to perform at about the same level on high leverage plays as they do on every other play, and that basic assumption is what underlies the bullish optimism of the metrics.

I'll admit, the simulations surprised me in this game. My models hardly batted an eye based on Utah's loss, ticking them down a couple of points here and there but overall, saying essentially 'the Utes lost that game exactly the way you'd expect them to lose that game' and giving few demerits to the team predictions moving forward.

I'm rolling with the numbers, which have served me well over the years. Utah is better than SDSU in every facet on paper, and you've got to imagine they learned a thing or two about whether or not they could just get off the bus and expect to win football games.

Utah 35, SDSU 23