It almost certainly had to happen, eventually. In a season where the BYU football team was picked by most experts and fans to go 5-7 or worse, an undefeated regular season always felt a bit unattainable. But man...to go down like this. At least, if we had to lose a game we were supposed to win, I'm grateful it wasn't against Utah. Not sure how well I would have handled that.
The crazy thing is that, at least on paper, not much has actually changed for BYU. By virtue of their 6-1 league record, which leaves them tied for first place in the Big 12 with Colorado, the Cougars still completely control their own destiny. They will need to go undefeated from here, including winning the Big 12 title game, but the College Football Playoff is still, incredibly, in play. Thank heavens for the end of independence.
And yet, after a game like this, that hardly feels like a reasonable expectation. This loss lays bare a lot of issues that have haunted the Cougars for weeks now but have been papered over because, frankly, winning makes everything OK. Now that the winning streak has ended, it's just possible that the emperor wasn't wearing clothes to begin with. It's time to have a serious talk about where this BYU team is, and where it could be headed. Here are some thoughts from an utterly miserable 17-13 BYU loss to Kansas:
The Good:
I'm becoming a broken record here, but the BYU defense once again played a great game and, by all appearances, is a championship-caliber unit. The Cougars held a very talented Kansas offense to just 17 points and, in particular, totally shut down the Jayhawks' potent rushing attack. Kansas ran for just 73 yards as a team, and QB Jalon Daniels, who has become notorious for killing opposing defenses with his legs, was held to just 15 yards on the ground. Daniels also passed for just 169 yards and an interception. That interception was a truly spectacular play by Marque Collins—other standout defensive performances included Tyler Batty, who was the Cougars' leading tackler and had 1.5 tackles for loss in his best game of the season; Isaiah Glasker, who had a TFL and combined with Batty for a sack; and Raider Damuni, who showed out impressively in Jay Hill's DB blitz packages and also recorded 1.5 TFLs. This was a tour de force by Coach Hill's defense—easily the unit's most impressive performance since the Kansas State and SMU games. If I were only measuring BYU's chances based on how the defense is playing, I'd be predicting a CFP appearance with absolute certainty—and maybe even a win in the Playoff.
Scoring just 13 points against a mediocre Kansas defense is inexcusable and I'll have plenty to say about it in a moment, but there are a couple of surprising good points to take away from what was otherwise easily the Cougars' worst offensive performance of the season. Bizarrely, BYU actually outgained Kansas 354 total yards to 242, mainly on the strength of a rushing attack that produced 162 yards. LJ Martin was his usual brilliant self, averaging over 5 yards per carry. Notably, the offensive line continues to perform better than expected in spite of a flood of injuries—Isaiah Jatta, who has taken over at right tackle for Brayden Keim, might even be an upgrade at that position. And because of a recent and fortuitous NCAA rules adjustment, the postseason (conference championship, bowl, and playoff games) does not count against the four-game cap for redshirt players; this means that Jatta, a true senior this year, will not have to burn his redshirt and will be able to return for the Cougars in 2025.
Strangely, I don't have any really interesting special teams highlights to talk about this week, but Kelly Poppinga's unit continues to do its job solidly and reliably. Will Ferrin, Sam Vander Haar, and Keelan Marion all had mistake-free performances. The Cougars have never struggled in a game because of special teams play this season, and have come out on top (or looked better than they should have) in more than one game specifically because of it. Coach Poppinga continues to prove his value to this staff.
The Bad:
There's no way around it—we have to talk about the reason BYU looks highly unlikely to make the College Football Playoff at this point: the offense. If you've been following my weekly recaps, you'll know that I've had questions about BYU's offense after nearly every game this season. Even when the Cougars have played "well", relatively speaking, they have never looked as convincing on offense as a top-10 team should. BYU still hasn't scored 40 points on offense against an FBS opponent this season (they only got to 41 against Arizona because of an Isaiah Glasker pick-six), despite facing several of the worst defenses in the nation. The Cougars have now scored touchdowns on exactly three of their last twenty-six offensive possessions dating back to halftime of the UCF game. That number is so ghastly that it almost doesn't seem believable.
After this offense only put up 27 points against a very, very bad Wyoming team in Laramie, I thought there was no way they could be productive in Big 12 play. And while they've overperformed my expectations dramatically since then, that may have been more a function of opponent strength than anything else. Of the current bottom six teams in the Big 12 standings, the Cougars have played five (including this loss to Kansas) and will play the sixth, Houston, in two weeks. Outside of solid Kansas State and Baylor teams, BYU has faced a pretty lightweight conference schedule. In retrospect, we should all have known how this game was going to go as we watched Utah, a team that held this BYU offense to a single touchdown, give up 49 points to Colorado a week later. But what, exactly, is wrong with the offense, and is it fixable? Do the Cougars have any hope down the stretch, or does this game mark the beginning of the end for what might have been a special season?
As I see it, there are two main issues with the BYU offense. The first, unfortunately, is quarterback play. Over the course of the Cougars' 9-0 start, Jake Retzlaff has enjoyed the same level of hype as successful BYU quarterbacks before him. But even as he's seen his name listed among the greats by national and local media, there has been a certain dissonance in watching him play. At his best, he's a great athlete with a cannon arm and a dynamic personality—a confident leader on the field and a beloved figure in the locker room. But he's never shown the swagger and mechanical consistency of Zach Wilson or the dependable playmaking of Jaren Hall. In other words, even as the results on the field have elevated Jake to the status of a great BYU quarterback, he hasn't regularly looked the part. Sure, there have been flashes—the brilliant first half of the Baylor game or the game-winning drive against Oklahoma State, for example—but Jake has mostly looked like a pretty average quarterback in terms of both mechanics and execution. And occasionally, he has looked far, FAR below average, with turnover issues that rear up at terribly inopportune times. His interception just before halftime of this game was disastrous, but not unprecedented—he threw boneheaded picks in critical, potentially game-losing situations in the 4th quarters of both the Baylor and SMU games, and had to be bailed out by the defense each time. Jake's decision-making and ability to read a defense are still seriously questionable and inconsistent from game to game. That's a really, really bad thing to have to say about a quarterback ten games into the season. To be clear, I like Jake—I don't think it's possible for a BYU fan not to like him. But fourteen games into his tenure as BYU's starting quarterback, I'm still just not convinced that he's actually good. I think he's a serviceable game manager who has shown hints of something better, but ultimately doesn't have the mental and mechanical consistency to be a star.
The second issue with the BYU offense is the performance of offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick. Those who have read this blog over time know that I've expressed doubts about Coach Roderick on several occasions, most notably during the Cougars' horrific meltdown in 2022. But this season, I actually feel that his playcalling has improved. I think he underutilized LJ Martin a little in this game and there were times when I thought the offense should have run instead of passing or vice-versa, but on a play-by-play basis, it's hard to know exactly what an OC is seeing from the defense as those decisions get made. My larger complaint with ARod is that his situational awareness and feel for the flow of the game continue to be poor. In this game, there were multiple situations where it felt like the Cougars weren't operating with the urgency they needed—taking too long to get plays in and eking out intentionally long, laborious, clock-killing drives when they needed points. You can't play for ball control when you're tied or behind for most of the second half! Kalani Sitake has directly addressed this point since the game and has stated that his intention is for the offense to be more aggressive about trying to score going forward, and I hope ARod is successful at implementing the changes he needs to make. But even then, as with Jake, I feel like ARod may have a ceiling too low for the rest of the team's potential. There are components of this BYU team (the defense, special teams, the receivers, LJ Martin, the O-line when healthy, etc.) which feel like they're ready to compete for a national title. But the offense as a unit does not, and that's ultimately on ARod. It feels like he's been consistently behind Jay Hill in the recruiting game ever since Hill arrived at BYU. But more importantly, the offense as it stands doesn't have the ability to score the kind of points needed for this BYU team to really do great things.
This was a heartbreaking way for a very entertaining and enjoyable 9-0 season to come crashing down. The Cougars still control their own destiny for the conference title game, and ultimately for the College Football Playoff if they can win in Arlington. But frankly, they don't look quite ready for that kind of stage right now. Imagining this BYU offense trying to keep pace with Colorado in the Big 12 championship game is already giving me heartburn.
But, of course, before the Cougars can think about Colorado (or whoever else might make the championship game), they have to take on Arizona State in Tempe. Seemingly out of nowhere, the Sun Devils are suddenly 8-2 and sitting at #21 in the CFP rankings following a big win over Kansas State this week. Cam Skattebo is arguably the best running back in the Big 12, and Sam Leavitt is making a case for being the league's best quarterback. Arizona State is a potent team that's gotten hot at exactly the right time, and will probably be the single most difficult regular season opponent BYU has faced this year. The Cougars are going in as narrow underdogs, and that honestly sounds about right. In its current state, I'm not sure the BYU offense can do enough to win on the road against such a talented team. But the BYU defense is also probably better than any other defense the Sun Devils have faced this season—Skattebo might join fellow stars DJ Giddens, RJ Harvey, and Micah Bernard in learning that it's not so easy to post huge rushing numbers against the Cougars.
If BYU somehow does beat Arizona State, the Cougars' path to the conference championship game is suddenly pretty simple—just beat a horrendous Houston team and you're in. I don't think this BYU team has what it takes to win a Big 12 title. I want to be wrong, but I don't think I am. If the Cougars did find a way to pull that miracle off, though, they'd be 12-1 and a lock for a CFP spot. This team really does still have everything to play for. Absolutely nothing is off the table. I just don't think the offense is quite ready to step up and claim it yet. And that's a real shame, because the rest of this roster looks like a group that could make some genuine noise in the Playoff this year.