TOLEDO, Ohio — BYU’s football team was scheduled to travel more than 1,600 miles on Thursday to play an upper-level Mid-American Conference team at 10 a.m. MDT Saturday morning in a small stadium that seats only 26,248.
The game against the Toledo Rockets won’t even be televised in the traditional sense of the word — It will be streamed on ESPN’s premium direct-to-consumer service called ESPN Plus to your favorite device at a cost of $4.99 per month.
“I expect a great atmosphere. I expect an awesome crowd. I expect our team to go out and play a really spirited, hard-fought football game for 60 minutes. I think it is cool to have teams from across the country come in here, and obviously this is a chance to showcase our university, our city.” — Rockets coach Jason Candle
Obviously, this isn’t BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe’s best scheduling work from a fan’s perspective — BYU is basically repaying Toledo for its 2016 visit to Provo — but don’t be fooled.
Toledo is as legitimate as any of the four Power Five programs the Cougars played to open the 2019 season, BYU coach Kalani Sitake has maintained all week. The Rockets (2-1) are picked to win the West Division of the MAC and defeated Colorado State 41-35 last Saturday in Fort Collins, Colorado.
“They are physical, they put up a lot of points, they can run the ball, and they have a really big, physical back (Bryant Koback),” Sitake said Monday, while also noting that the Rockets were in the game until the end before falling 38-24 to the SEC’s Kentucky in their opener.
“Their quarterback (Mitch Guadagni) is not afraid to run the ball himself, and when they do throw, they are efficient. They get a lot of yards. They are well-coached,” Sitake continued. “So we need to make sure we are at our best in order to compete with these guys.”
Linebackers coach Ed Lamb said Koback, who rushed for a career-high 228 yards and touchdowns of 37, 47 and 75 yards against the Rams, “is an NFL running back in my opinion,” much like former Rocket Kareem Hunt turned out to be after that 55-53 game in Provo in 2016, Sitake’s first season.
BYU also had a big-time back in that shootout — Jamaal Williams rushed for a career-high 286 yards and five TDs that night — and believed it would have one in Saturday’s game until Ty’Son Williams sustained a season-ending knee injury against Washington in the 45-19 loss last week.
“It was a defensive nightmare, almost like the UCLA-Washington State game last weekend,” Sitake said, remembering how impressed he was with Toledo’s explosiveness. “That coaching staff does a great job at reloading. … And it always poses some problems when you have quarterbacks that can run the ball.”
Guadagni threw for 266 yards and three touchdowns in Toledo’s 45-0 win over Murray State two weeks ago, then rushed for 119 yards and a TD against CSU while completing just six of 15 passes for 111 yards and a TD.
“Their quarterback is a very good runner and they have got one of the best tailbacks in the country,” Lamb said. “They pull the ball out and throw the (run-pass option) at you if you commit too much to the run. So it is going to have to be a good, solid, sound 11-man defensive effort.”
BYU has played only one game in the state of Ohio — a 20-3 win over Cincinnati in 2016 — and in only one MAC venue, having faced Western Michigan in Kalamazoo three times between 1962 and 1970 at Waldo Stadium.
Suffice it to say, Toledo has been looking forward to this rare opportunity to host a prominent program at the Glass Bowl, Rockets coach Jason Candle said.
“I expect a great atmosphere,” said the fourth-year head coach. “I expect an awesome crowd. I expect our team to go out and play a really spirited, hard-fought football game for 60 minutes. I think it is cool to have teams from across the country come in here, and obviously this is a chance to showcase our university, our city.”
Candle acknowledged that not everybody in the stands will be wearing midnight blue and gold.
“People don’t want to hear it, but there are BYU fans all across the country,” he said. “This is a chance for those fans to come see the game as well. … Our responsibility is to prepare like crazy and go play really hard on Saturday and put out a great product.”
Coaches whose teams rarely play BYU are often asked about the Cougars having “older” players due to many of them having served two-year missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Candle was no exception. The average age of BYU’s roster is 21.4 years and about 25 players are married, according to BYU’s game notes.
“Well, we don’t check IDs before we play,” Candle said. “It really isn’t that big of a deal. It is what it is. This is a football game. You prepare for them like you prepare for every other team that you play.”
Along with the high-scoring nature of the first meeting, Candle said he remembers how well the Rockets and their fans were treated in Provo.
“The really cool thing about going out there and playing a couple years ago is these guys are guys that play football for the right reasons,” he said. “They attack and approach the game just like our football team does, a really blue-collar approach, and it is really a clean football game. It is not a bunch of yapping and (doing) crazy stuff after the play. It is, ‘we are going to whack you for four to six seconds here and we are going to pick you up after the play and we are going to do this for 60 minutes and see what happens.’”
• • •
Cougars on the air
BYU (2-2) at Toledo (2-1)
At the Glass Bowl, Toledo, Ohio
Saturday, 10 a.m. (MDT)
TV: ESPN Plus (subscription)
Radio: 1160 AM, 102.7 FM