When BYU's bowl pairing was announced a few weeks ago, I was a little upset that the Cougars were matched up against another Big 12 team, effectively making the bowl a tenth conference game. That feeling lasted only a moment, though, and from that point on, I was really excited for this game. The Alamo Bowl is arguably the most prestigious non-CFP bowl game, and a showdown with #23 Colorado and Heisman winner Travis Hunter was sure to draw a great deal of media attention and TV viewership. This game was an opportunity for the Cougars to prove themselves in front of easily their largest audience of the season.
And boy, did they prove themselves. Kalani Sitake's team saved one of their most electrifying performances of the season for their biggest stage. Against a nationally acclaimed Colorado team featuring two of this year's most highly-regarded draft prospects in Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders, the 17th-ranked Cougars utterly and completely dominated the game from start to finish, racing out to a 27-0 lead and coasting to a convincing 36-14 victory. And incredibly, it should have been much more lopsided. The Cougars actually lost the turnover battle, failed to score points at all after a successful surprise onside kick, and had multiple possessions end with brutal red zone mistakes. The score could easily have been 63-14. In some ways, this game was a microcosm of BYU's entire season: the Cougars played great for the most part and earned a memorable victory over a high-profile opponent, but they left some style points on the table and didn't ultimately live up to their potential. It's a little bittersweet to consider where this team might be right now but for an absolutely head-scratching offensive meltdown against Kansas, but what's done is done, and this will still go down as an incredibly special and memorable season, especially with a grand finale like this.
There is a ton to talk about after this game, from individual player performances to schematic decisions and implications for the offseason, but just for a moment, it's incredibly satisfying to just take it all in. When the lights were the brightest, this BYU team looked as good as it has all season. Here are some thoughts from BYU's dominant performance:
The Good:
In a matchup of Colorado's glitz and glamor versus BYU's more hard-nosed style, the Cougars performed decisively better in all three phases of the game. But on the defensive side of the ball, the gap was by far the greatest. The BYU defense controlled this game completely. Against a Colorado offensive line known to be vulnerable, Jay Hill and Gary Andersen dialed up no fewer than seventeen different defensive packages in the first half alone, many of which involved a ferocious pass rush designed to limit QB Shedeur Sanders' ability to extend plays. All that gameplanning and preparation paid off big-time for the Cougars, who made Sanders' day absolutely miserable. He found himself running for his life over and over while being sacked four times and picked off twice. Newly-crowned Heisman winner Travis Hunter had his usual success, catching 4 passes for 106 yards and a touchdown, but much of that production came in garbage time—and aside from Hunter, the Colorado offense was held completely in check. The Cougar defense was headlined by Isaiah Glasker, who was named defensive MVP after a performance that included 8 tackles, 1 TFL, and a spectacular diving interception, after which he cheekily showed off Deion Sanders' trademark celebration dance within mere feet of the Colorado sideline. To repeat a point I've made multiple times this year, Glasker was BYU's best linebacker by a significant margin for much of the season despite only being a sophomore. His potential is sky-high, and if he can stay healthy, he may go down as one of the greatest linebackers in program history when all is said and done. Other standout performers for the Cougars included Evan Johnson, also only a sophomore, who recorded his second interception of the season and ended his 2024 campaign as, surprisingly, BYU's highest-rated defender according to Pro Football Focus; Tyler Batty, who finished his BYU career with a fantastic performance that saw him dominate the line of scrimmage and crash into the backfield on multiple occasions; Tanner Wall, who had a nice game in coverage and laid the vicious hit that led to Johnson's interception; Raider Damuni, who started in place of the transferring Crew Wakley and recorded a monster sack on Shedeur Sanders off a safety blitz; and Siale Esera, who got a great deal of playing time in the absence of the transferring Moa brothers and played arguably his best game as a Cougar. This might be the most impressive performance of the season by the BYU defense (though a case could be made for the SMU game). The Cougars' defensive staff asked their players to learn and implement a complicated gameplan, and they rose magnificently to the occasion. As a side note, I'm not sure BYU fans have appreciated how big a deal it is that Jay Hill was able to hire Gary Andersen as a defensive analyst. The former Utah State, Wisconsin, and Oregon State head coach brings a wealth of schematic and personnel management experience to the staff and has played an important role in Hill's defense reaching a new level this season.
LJ Martin was the star of the show for the BYU offense, rushing for 93 yards and two scores and adding 33 receiving yards for good measure in a performance that earned him a well-deserved offensive MVP trophy. Jake Retzlaff was unspectacular for the most part but had a couple of nice moments, highlighted by multiple long drive-extending runs. Sione I. Moa, who all but vanished from the lineup after his early production so as to preserve his redshirt, took advantage of the fact that bowl games don't count against the four-game reshirt cap and had a nice performance as a change of pace with Martin (Hinckley Ropati, BYU's normal RB2, missed the game with an injury). With Ropati graduating, I expect that Moa will step into a larger role in the offense next year. He's shown great burst and toughness in the limited snaps he's gotten—he also still has plenty of eligibility left, meaning that if he continues to develop, he could very well succeed LJ Martin as the Cougars' feature back.
It's fitting that the BYU special teams unit pulled out all the stops for the final game of what can convincingly be called the greatest season of special teams play in BYU football history. Parker Kingston recorded his second punt return touchdown of the year, making him the first BYU player to accomplish that feat since the great James Dye in 1996 and marking the first time in program history that the Cougars have recorded multiple punt return and kickoff return touchdowns in the same season. And incredibly enough, that's not the only history-making performance the special teams unit had in this game. With his three made field goals (including hits from 54 and 51 yards), Will Ferrin set the all-time BYU records for both field goals made in a season (24) and consecutive makes (16); he also executed a flawless surprise onside kick in the 1st quarter. Ferrin hasn't missed a field goal since the Baylor game. He also finished a perfect 41/41 on PAT attempts. In other words, Ferrin just had the greatest season ever by a BYU placekicker. So, to recap, the BYU special teams unit had the most productive season of kick and punt returns in program history and the greatest placekicking season in program history in 2024. That is a borderline unbelievable achievement. It sounds made up. And it came out of nowhere—if anything, BYU's special teams play was erratic and generally below-average last year, despite the Cougars having arguably the most talented kicker and punter in program history (Ferrin and Ryan Rehkow) on the team at the same time. Kelly Poppinga's 2024 special teams renaissance is a miracle that should be studied and analyzed for years to come. This was the greatest special teams unit in the history of BYU football, and it contributed significantly to the Cougars' 11-2 record.
This game was a major publicity coup for BYU—easily the next best thing besides making the College Football Playoff. The Cougars got a blowout win over a nationally-ranked and heavily media-hyped opponent on a primetime stage. This is the kind of win that, on its own, is capable of significantly increasing a program's momentum. Recruits were watching this game. They saw a BYU coaching staff that completely out-prepared Colorado's vaunted sideline and BYU players who decisively out-executed their much more highly regarded and recruited Colorado counterparts. This win will directly lead to improved recruiting success for the Cougars. BYU coaches will be able to point to it as evidence of what prospects can expect from this program. I'm being completely serious when I say that the Alamo Bowl could be an inflection point for the BYU football program.
The Bad:
The BYU offense had some surprising issues given how dominant the Cougars' overall performance was in this game. Jake Retzlaff actually played one of his worst games of the season overall, throwing two picks (three if you count the one he threw on yet another failed goal line fade during a 2pt conversion attempt) and finishing with just 151 passing yards and no touchdowns. He made several brutal mistakes, including throwing a momentum-killing pick in the end zone following a perfect surprise onside kick and also throwing an interception on a weird shovel pass, which is (bizarrely) at least the third pick he's thrown to a defensive lineman this year. Retzlaff has now started 17 games as a Cougar, and I still don't quite know what to make of him. At his best, he's a great athlete and a dynamic playmaker; at his worst, he's a shaky, mistake-prone disaster waiting to happen. And he seems to vacillate wildly between those highs and lows. He's as inconsistent a regular starting QB as I've ever seen at BYU. His mechanics are brutal, but his flat-out strength and athleticism make up for them to an extent. His ability to read a defense and make pre-snap decisions is questionable, but he's fantastic when asked to improvise and think on his feet. He is a mess of contradictions. To be clear, barring some catastrophe, Jake will be the clear favorite to start in 2025. He has the trust of the coaches and the locker room. But I worry that his limitations may place a ceiling on that team. BYU was historically good in two phases of the game this year, fielding its best defense since 2012 and its best special teams unit ever. With a better offense, this was a playoff team—potentially a team that could make some noise in the playoff. But in the most critical stretch of the season, the BYU offense utterly collapsed and knocked their team out of contention. We know that Jay Hill and Kelly Poppinga are going to bring it again in 2025. But will Aaron Roderick and the offense finally rise to their level?
In the aftermath of this game, it's become fashionable to try and rank the 2024 BYU football team against the best in program history. I will probably jump into that debate at some point, but I'll need some time to think about it. On the one hand, this team got out to a spectacular 9-0 start, won 11 games overall, beat Utah, annihilated Colorado in a prominent bowl game, is likely to finish ranked in the top 15, and was a silly tiebreak away from playing for a Big 12 championship. On the other hand, the Cougars struggled to beat multiple bad teams, the offense was shaky throughout the season, and when it absolutely counted, the team fell apart disastrously against Kansas and Arizona State.
In total, BYU has fielded thirteen 11-win teams (1979, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2020, and 2024). Not all of them were created equal. This team has the advantage of having played one of the two hardest schedules in program history, which will probably elevate it not just to the top of the 11-win list but also past multiple one-loss teams that faced much weaker schedules. At some point in the near future, I'll put out my updated ranking of BYU's best seasons, and I'm sure this one won't be low on the list.
This was a special season. Even as it didn't perhaps live up to its even higher potential, this team accomplished something genuinely remarkable. Written off as a Big 12 field-filler by virtually everyone (myself included), this amazing group of players and coaches responded by producing an all-time great season that will be fondly remembered by Cougar fans. To me, senior center Connor Pay encapsulates what made this team special. Go back and watch his postgame interview from this game. He and many other guys absolutely hated the 2023 season and were frustrated with the staff, particularly offensive line coach Darrell Funk. There were plenty of contributors on that team who could have bailed into the transfer portal. Pay has been open about the fact that had Funk been retained, he probably would have been one of them. But Funk was let go, and the upperclassmen on that team largely decided to give BYU another chance—to try to make up for that disastrous season. They were focused, determined, and passionate. They had everything to play for and very little to lose. And the result was a season that shocked the college football world.
The contributions of seniors like Connor Pay, Jakob Robinson, Tyler Batty, Blake Mangelson, and John Nelson also speak to how much continuity matters for a college football team. After a 5-7 season, the BYU coaching staff could easily have dumped a large number of players into the portal and gone for a full rebuild. Instead, they bet on their players' ability to improve during the offseason. They bet on experience. They bet on leadership. And the result was that despite only adding a couple significant contributors in the portal, they produced a historically great team. Such continuity isn't as attainable this offseason for the simple reason that the Cougars are going to lose a ton of talent to graduation—many of their most important players this year were seniors. In addition, BYU will lose many more players to the portal this offseason simply due to NCAA-mandated roster cuts. Next year's team will have experienced substantially more turnover than this one did. But that ethos of continuity remains, and it's clear that the coaching staff is working overtime to retain as many key players as possible—of the fifteen BYU players who transferred during the fall portal window, only the Moa brothers, Crew Wakley, and Austin Riggs (a long snapper) played serious rotational snaps for the Cougars this year. The staff can live with that.
I've had a lot of fun this season. I hope you have too, dear reader. It's been a wild and extremely unexpected ride. This is the first season where I've actually done a full recap of every game, and I've enjoyed myself immensely in the process. If you've taken the time to read my thoughts, I'm grateful. I hope you've been as entertained by this team as I have. I will be a blue-blooded BYU fan always and forever, through the good times and the bad—and seasons like this make it all worthwhile.