FORT WORTH, Texas — The game had long since been decided, but there was a sequence of three plays late in BYU’s thoroughly embarrassing 44-11 loss to TCU on Saturday that pretty much summed up the day for the Cougars and their punchless offense.
With just under six minutes remaining, BYU quarterback Kedon Slovis sailed a ball far over open receiver Darius Lassiter’s head.
On the next play, BYU receiver Keelan Marion popped open briefly, and Slovis put the ball on Marion, but TCU cornerback Jaionte McMillan arrived when the ball did and knocked it away.
“Today, they looked a lot like what I saw last year on film.” — BYU coach Kalani Sitake.
On third and 10, a streaking Lassiter was open again and Slovis hit him in stride, but the football slipped through Lassiter’s fingers.
It was that kind of day for the Cougars, who fell to 1-2 in Big 12 play, 4-2 overall, and saw the program’s misery at Amon G. Carter Stadium continue in front of 44,599 in Fort Worth.
The Horned Frogs snapped their two-game losing streak with a riotous romp at home, improving to 2-2 in the Big 12 and 4-3 overall, and maybe regaining the form that carried them to the national championship game last year.
Of course, TCU most likely won’t face a defense as porous, or an offense as ineffective, as what BYU put on the field Saturday.
“They were in a position where their backs were against the wall. That seems to happen quite a bit in this conference where guys have to respond from a loss or a situation they are in,” BYU coach Kalani Sitake said of TCU after the bloodbath.
“Now we find ourselves in that situation, so it is time for us to respond. I am excited to see how we can respond from this and get better.”
Using a redshirt freshman quarterback making his first career start, TCU rolled up a whopping 584 yards of offense and held BYU to 243. It was complete domination from the opening kickoff.
Redshirt freshman quarterback Josh Hoover, making his first college start, completed 37 of 58 passes — yes, 58 passes — for 439 yards and four touchdowns. Injured starter Chandler Morris might have a battle on his hands to get his job back. Hoover was that good, and that effective. His passer rating was 143.2, despite throwing two interceptions.
“Today, they looked a lot like what I saw last year on film,” Sitake said.
And BYU looked utterly clueless for most of the game, a shocker considering the Cougars had a bye last week and had 15 days to prepare for what they were hoping would be their first Big 12 road win against a TCU team that was thumped last week by Iowa State.
The Cougars didn’t come close to an upset, as five-point underdogs.
“It was a tough pill for us to swallow, but we have no choice but to learn from this and get better,” Sitake said.
In many ways, this was one of those outcomes folks should have seen coming from a long ways away.
The Cougars were out-gained by 200 yards two weeks ago against Cincinnati, and they were less than impressive against doormats Sam Houston and Southern Utah.
The Cougars were living on borrowed time. They were doing it with smoke and mirrors — whatever you want to call it.
And it finally caught up to them in a big way deep in the heart of Texas, where people here believe they invented football and the Frogs played like it Saturday.
Not that BYU put up much resistance. On either side of the ball.
Graduate transfer quarterback Slovis suffered through his worst performance as a Cougar, throwing a pick six on his first pass and never really recovering.
He finished 15 of 34 for 152 yards and was sacked three times.
But it wasn’t all his fault. The Cougars rushed for only 91 yards behind a revamped offensive line that had Connor Pay playing center and Utah transfer Paul Maile playing guard. BYU’s receivers struggled to get open all game, adding to the misery.
“It sucks, and doesn’t feel good,” Slovis said, after taking the blame for the offense’s off day. “No one in the building feels good about it, but I think you can turn that into motivation to perform in practice this week harder than ever and make sure we are prepared and we are doing things to the best of our ability.
“Again, you can’t let TCU beat you twice.”
This one felt like 100 TCU wins.
It was a rewind of those old Mountain West Conference days, when the Frogs beat the Cougars by scores of 32-7, 38-7 and 31-3 from 2008-10.
Heck, this was more embarrassing for the visitors than any of those, considering that Hoover played like Roger Staubach — with a lot of assistance from BYU.
With Hoover at the controls, the Frogs were 10 of 14 on third down through the first three quarters, and finished 12 of 19.
“They punished us on third down,” Sitake noted.
Hoover also picked up a first down with his feet, crushing BYU with a 26-yard jaunt on third and 10 in the third quarter.
BYU’s issues were many and varied.
On defense, the pass coverage was soft, the pursuit angles suspect and the tackling shoddy. The Cougars generated very little pass rush, allowing Hoover to pick them apart.
Offensively, BYU was even worse, if that’s possible. It started with the pick six by TCU’s Millard Bradford, and didn’t get much better.
The Cougars rebounded from that by punting on their next five possessions, then fumbling away the football when a 15-yard defensive pass interference penalty had seemingly given them life.
Slovis was hit as he was throwing, officials ruled it a fumble on the field and it stood up after a replay review.
It was as thorough of a butt-kicking as the Cougars have absorbed in the Sitake era, right up there with that 40-6 loss to Wisconsin in 2017.
We don’t have to remind Cougar fans of what happened in 2017. Or in the late 2000s, when Gary Patterson was putting these kinds of beatdowns on BYU on the reg.
The Cougars finally got something going offensively midway through the second quarter, thanks to Chase Roberts’ outstanding 39-yard catch and run. Keelan Marion’s 3-yard TD run and Roberts’ two-point conversion catch finally got BYU on the scoreboard with 3:15 left in the first half.
Could another comeback be in the works?
Yeah, right.
TCU immediately answered, going 81 yards in nine plays for a score to erase any momentum BYU might have had. The drive was aided by a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on BYU’s Crew Wakley for celebrating an incompletion in the face of a TCU receiver.
At halftime, the Frogs had 303 yards of offense to BYU’s 108.
Sitake said he didn’t have an answer for why the Cougars played without a sense of urgency. Or maybe they were just out-talented, out-manned at virtually every position.
The one spot where they were supposed to have a big advantage was the spot where, ironically, they were convincingly outplayed.
“With the sense of urgency for the team, I need to do a better job,” Sitake said. “We had great practices as a team, a great week of prep. I was just not expecting this kind of a result from us.”