As wild as the BYU football coaching situation has looked over the month of December, it was sometimes easy to forget that on the field, the Cougars still had one more game on their slate. Snubbed by the playoff committee after losing badly to Texas Tech in the Big 12 title game, and spurned by erstwhile bowl opponent Notre Dame, BYU instead had to prepare, in the midst of all of the chaos around the program, to face a very good Georgia Tech team in the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
I, like most BYU fans, was disappointed and upset that the Cougars were left out of the college football playoff as an 11-win team that played for the Big 12 championship. But if I could have picked a non-playoff bowl for BYU to play in, it would probably have been the Pop-Tarts Bowl. The organizers of this game have done a fantastic job making it an entertaining, engaging spectacle, and it shows in the TV numbers--8.7 million viewers tuned in, making this the most-watched BYU football game ever and the most-watched non-CFP bowl game since the 2020 Citrus Bowl between Alabama and Michigan.
Those viewers got their money's worth, too, as the 2025 Pop-Tarts Bowl was an instant classic. BYU didn't look especially good out of the gate, stumbling through a chaotic and mistake-ridden first half and taking an 11-point deficit into halftime. But in what would prove to be his last great gift to the BYU fanbase, Jay Hill came out of the locker room for the second half and chose violence. Georgia Tech's five offensive possessions after halftime ended as follows: fumble, blocked field goal, punt, punt, interception. That complete defensive dominance allowed the Cougar offense to shake off its early struggles and put together a pair of key touchdown drives, erasing the deficit and earning BYU a hard-fought win.
It's been another incredible season of BYU football. While a pair of blowout losses to Texas Tech disappointed fans and gave the CFP committee the excuse it needed to exclude the Cougars, this was still the first 12-win season at BYU since 2001. This team was incredibly talented and well-coached, with an amazing culture and tremendous resilience. As we bring the 2025 season to a close, here are some final thoughts on the Cougars' 25-21 Pop-Tarts Bowl win over #22 Georgia Tech:
The Good:
As I mentioned above, the BYU defense won this game. After halftime, Georgia Tech never scored again despite making it deep into BYU territory three times. The Cougars' vaunted red zone defense was as good as ever, keeping the game competitive while the offense worked out its struggles and developed a rhythm. There were a few noteworthy stars for the defense in this game--Tanner Wall and Faletau Satuala were their normal reliable selves at safety, and Evan Johnson, arguably the Cougars' best defensive back this season (it would be a close contest between him and Satuala), played well all night and closed out the game with an interception in the end zone. But the really eye-popping performance of the game for BYU came from true freshman edge rusher Nusi Taumoepeau. Nusi played sparingly early in the season and earned more snaps as the schedule wore on, but this game was his coming-out party. He recorded team highs of 6 solo tackles and 3 quarterback hurries, and those numbers don't do justice to what a force he was off the edge. One of those QB hurries came on the defense's final play of the game, when he nearly sacked Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King and forced the errant throw that Johnson picked off. Nusi was a breakout player for the Cougars this year, and he's only going to get better from here.
The Cougar offense didn't have a lot of options for running the ball in this game, with LJ Martin and Sione Moa out and Bear Bachmeier dealing with ankle issues, so the offensive workload largely fell on Bear's passing arm. He wasn't perfect, but he was pretty dang good, completing 27/38 passes for 325 yards, a touchdown, and a pick. That performance earned him the Pop-Tarts Bowl MVP award, and also put him over 3,000 passing yards for the season. He finishes his freshman campaign with 3,033 yards through the air, 527 on the ground, and 26 total touchdowns. A true freshman posting those numbers is pretty remarkable--for context, if he were a Utah quarterback, he would own the 7th-best passing season in program history, exactly one yard behind Cam Rising's career-best 2022 campaign. This was the final collegiate game for two outstanding seniors on offense, Carsen Ryan and Chase Roberts, and both went out on high notes. Ryan was sensational, catching 8 passes for 120 yards, and Roberts had 7 catches for 57 yards and a touchdown. BYU will miss both the leadership and on-field production of those two stars immensely. The run game was, as mentioned, mostly nothing to write home about, but Jovesa Damuni had a nice outing, rushing for 48 yards and the go-ahead touchdown on nearly 7 yards per carry. He didn't get a whole lot of action this season, but that performance should put him in contention for more touches next year.
Special teams was a mixed bag in this game, but there were some big positives. Keanu Tanuvasa's huge 3rd-quarter blocked field goal erased Bear Bachmeier's only real mistake of the game, a devastating goal line interception. Sam Vander Haar had a fantastic game, with both of his punts downed inside the 10-yard line. Will Ferrin made his only field goal attempt and both PAT tries, stretching his extraordinary BYU record for consecutive made PATs to a final mark of 120 (the previous record was 87, which Will passed against Colorado in the Cougars' first conference game this year). Though he had a bit of a shaky stretch toward the end of the season, particularly from longer distances, Will still makes a persuasive case to be considered the best kicker in BYU football history.
The Bad:
We've seen this routine so often this season--BYU gets down early, claws back into the game, and wins in exciting fashion. Incredibly, the Cougars have trailed by 10+ points in seven games this season--and have won five of them! But obviosuly, getting down by double digits is never good, and in this game, it was the result of a combination of offensive, defensive, and special teams mistakes that compounded as the half went on. Probably the worst moment of the half came with 5:15 to play, when, after the defense gave up a long touchdown drive, Cody Hagen fumbled the ensuing kickoff. The Yellowjackets scored another touchdown one play later, taking the score from 10-7 to 10-21 in something like ten seconds of game time. The special teams unit has had a bit of a strange season in the return game; both Parker Kingston and Cody Hagen were less than ideally surehanded at times. Those fumbling issues need to be a major point of emphasis during the offseason.
Bear Bachmeier only made one really serious mistake in this game, and it was a doozy. Early in the 2nd half, Georgia Tech lost a fumble in BYU territory and Bear marched the BYU offense all the way down the field, only to throw a devastating pick at the goal line. Points of any kind at that moment in the game would have made a huge difference for the Cougars, and to come away empty on that drive was tough. In general, the BYU offense struggled to finish drives in this game--the Cougars also had a turnover on downs at the 1-yard line on their first drive, and ended a long and hard-fought 2nd-quarter drive with a 22-yard field goal instead of a touchdown. BYU's struggles in short yardage without LJ Martin and Sione Moa (and with Bear's running limited) were brutally obvious--Enoch Nawahine and Jovesa Damuni just didn't have the same muscle in the power run game. The Cougars had a really hard time finishing drives. I would like to see BYU's running backs room add some serious muscle this offseason, whether through the portal or internal development. Clearly, with LJ and Sione both somewhat injury-prone, the existing depth does not cut it.
This wasn't always the prettiest game for BYU, and really, that typifies the Cougars' entire 2025 season. Rarely did BYU look good winning, and that's a major reason they were ultimately left out of the playoff. The Cougars won 12 games, yes, but they never really looked like a powerhouse, even if the numbers said they were.
The good news for the Cougars, though, is that while Jay Hill and Jernaro Gilford decided (for reasons best known to them) to follow Kyle Whittingham to Michigan, the BYU roster did not. In fact, though the portal still hasn't officially closed at the time of writing, every single starter from this roster with eligibility remaining has publicly re-committed to BYU. That's a 100% retention rate, which would be an extraordinary achievement for a 12-win BYU team even if they hadn't just lost their defensive coordinator and (arguably) their best defensive recruiter to a Big 10 blueblood! As we saw in 2023 and 2024, it's possible for a roster to take a pretty significant leap forward simply by staying together and having more time to develop within a scheme. This team was already incredible, and next year has the opportunity to be even better. It's pretty clear that this is Kalani's team first and foremost--the players love playing for him, and are committed to him above all else. As long as Kalani stays, this program is going to be in pretty amazing shape.
Of course, as we all know, Kalani almost didn't stay at BYU this offseason. We don't need to get into all of the reasons that he nearly left for Penn State, but had he taken that offer (and every indication is that he was very close, and may have even had a handshake agreement in place), this program could have ended up in a pretty dark place. Kalani Sitake is BYU football. He's the heart and soul of this program, and Cougar Nation should enjoy the experience of having him here, because he won't be here forever.
It's pretty easy to call the era from ~1974 to 1996 the "Golden Age" of BYU football. Under head coach LaVell Edwards, the Cougars churned out All-Americans and Davey O'Brien Award winners like so many cars rolling off an assembly line. They won 11+ games seven times, won the 1984 national championship, and produced a Heisman winner, Ty Detmer, in 1990.
While Kalani Sitake's tenure hasn't reached those heights yet, it's pretty clearly trending in that direction. At this point, everything seems to point to BYU football being headed straight into its second Golden Age. With an army of boosters supporting an engaged, dedicated, and totally bought-in roster that's led by an elite and likable coaching staff, there's no reason to think that this program won't enjoy sustained success in the years ahead. It really is the best time to be a Cougar.