Jaren Hall: We Were Confident In How Good BYU Football Could Be In 2021

PROVO, Utah – BYU’s 2021 season is going better than expected. Not many people outside of the building felt this team would be sitting at 7-2 and ranked No. 15 in the latest College Football Playoff poll.

With the lack of production returning compared to the rest of the college football world and losing the No. 2 overall pick in the NFL Draft, it seemed likely that BYU would not be as good as last year.

Technically, the two losses at this point in the year are not as good as 2020, but the schedule is much more challenging with a plethora of Power Five teams on the schedule. So far, the Cougars are 5-1 against those teams.

Kept our foot on the gas ⛽️ pic.twitter.com/n05OdacBkx

— BYU FOOTBALL (@BYUfootball) November 2, 2021

Don’t tell BYU quarterback Jaren Hall that the 7-2 record is not as good as last year’s 9-0 team. He joined Unrivaled to give his thoughts on what the expectations were for this team heading into the year.

“I think with a lot of the dudes we lost last year and the leaders there were questions marks especially outside of this building amongst the fanbase of what would happen,” Hall said. “I think within ourselves we were confident that we could take care of business.

“I don’t think we put a number on how many games we would win or where would rank nationally. I think we knew overall we would play clean football and know what we are doing.”

Playing the schedule they had for 2021 compared to the 2020 season meant the team had to be more prepared for Power 5 teams and a pair of rivals in Boise State and Utah State.

Even though the toughest part of the schedule is over, Hall recognizes the need to keep playing better and not let up despite playing a few lesser opponents like Idaho State and Georgia Southern before the final game at USC.

“I think the challenge is finding a way to keep the same focus, maturity, and respect for the game that we have had the past nine weeks, especially we had going into Virginia [game],” Hall said. “Now that we have had our breakout game and seen that if we execute and don’t make the silly mistakes in the red zone over the past couple of weeks. If we can do that consistently now we will be a really hard team to stop offensively.”

There would be no reason for Hall and his Cougar teammates to doubt how good they would be this year but sitting at 7-2 and 10 wins clearly in sight, they all have to be at the very least pleasantly surprised of their record and how well they are playing.

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