FORT WORTH, Texas — When they suffered a 38-27 loss at Kansas three weeks ago, the BYU Cougars could easily whisk away the setback by saying they gift-wrapped the win for the so-so Jayhawks.
If not for two defensive scores, Kansas would not have won so handily, the thinking in Provo went.
“Some times you have to pivot and figure out other ways to do things. You just can’t keep doing the same things and expect the results to change. We definitely have to pivot and do some things. But they are all within the realm of our capabilities. … We have the players and the talent to do it.” — BYU coach Kalani Sitake
Sentiments like that were more difficult to arrive at after Saturday’s crushing 44-11 defeat at the hands of the TCU Horned Frogs, a now 4-3 team that was clearly superior to BYU (1-2, 4-2) in all three phases of the game, and in coaching, in many respects.
So where does BYU, embarrassed, humiliated and, as coach Kalani Sitake noted, “exposed in a lot of different ways,” go from here?
It starts with a lot of introspection, the eight-year head coach said in the bowels of Amon G. Carter Stadium after the second-worst loss in his tenure, and after heaping praise on TCU (2-2, 4-3) and predicting the Frogs had found their “identity” and turned a mildly disappointing season around.
“We find ourselves in a difficult position right now,” Sitake acknowledged. “I know that the adversity will get us to the right spot. It created a spark for TCU, and I imagine that they are going to keep this momentum rolling.
“What we need to do is find the same spark and the same type of urgency that they did this week,” Sitake continued. “Now we get to go home and play this game (of football) again against a really good Texas Tech team.”
The Red Raiders will roll into Provo on Saturday (5 p.m. MDT, FS1) for the first time ever with their own issues after falling 38-21 to Kansas State over the weekend and possibly losing another quarterback to injury. Starter Behren Morton, who was in the game because opening-game starter Tyler Shough suffered a fractured fibula in the 20-13 road loss at West Virginia on Sept. 23, was knocked out of the game in Lubbock, Texas, and replaced by freshman Jake Strong in the third quarter.
Strong helped put together a 99-yard touchdown drive to give Texas Tech a 21-17 lead in the third quarter, but was intercepted three times after KSU regained the lead.
Texas Tech’s quarterback quandary will be the least of BYU’s concerns this week, however. The Cougars have plenty of issues of their own, as the beatdown in Fort Worth showed.
With redshirt freshman QB Josh Hoover made to look like famed former TCU QB Sammy Baugh by the Cougars’ utter ineptitude on defense, TCU had twice as many first downs (30-15) and 584 yards of offense to BYU’s 243.
It was total domination, and Sitake knew it.
“We didn’t help ourselves, either,” Sitake said. “… All three phases weren’t clicking and if you are not clicking TCU is that type of team that will hurt you. … They utilized their speed, and also a big, physical O line. And then on defense they kept us guessing on so many different things.”
In short, playing Kansas almost evenly and downing Cincinnati 35-27 although they were outgained by more than 200 yards might have given the Cougars a false sense of security that they could hang in the Big 12.
The debacle at TCU showed that they probably can’t. Not right now, anyway. It wasn’t necessarily scheming or lack of game-planning that doomed BYU to the lopsided loss. It was the simple fact that TCU had better players at almost every position.
The sobering thought for BYU is that almost all of the remaining Big 12 opponents on the schedule, perhaps even this week against the Red Raiders, have talent equal to or better than the Frogs, who are rebuilding a bit after playing in the national championship game last season.
“They are an impressive, athletic team. They have good players. But again, we saw that on film. We knew that,” BYU quarterback Kedon Slovis said. “We have some good guys with some speed and athleticism, too. So again, I think hats off to them. They are a good team and did a lot. But I would expect us to execute better.”
Can the Cougars execute better? That takes talent and depth. If nothing else, the loss to TCU showed BYU has a ways to go in those areas.
“When it came to third down we just didn’t get off the field,” said BYU linebacker AJ Vongphachanh. “It comes down to winning our one-on-ones.”
That didn’t happen — because game plans don’t win games. Players do. And TCU had better players.
Slovis’ suggestion after completing fewer than half of his passes, throwing for just 152 yards and turning the ball over twice was to “put it away and move on” to Texas Tech. That after expressing confidence that Sitake and his staff can pull a rabbit out of its collective hat.
“I think Kalani does a great job from the top down of taking the game tape, learning from it, getting better, and allowing us to play our best ball going forward,” Slovis said.
Will that be enough? It will be interesting to see how the Cougars respond. The last time they were embarrassed this much — in the 41-14 loss at Liberty in 2022 — they returned to LES and fell 27-24 to East Carolina before winning the final four games of the season.
Of course, Boise State, Utah Tech, Stanford and SMU aren’t the same caliber as teams left on the 2023 schedule — Texas, Oklahoma, etc.
“Here we go,” Sitake said, grasping the new reality. “We are in the middle of conference (play). … We have some work to do. I need to do a better job as a coach getting our team ready and responding to adversity. We plan on doing that. … We will do this with a positive attitude and try to get better and learn as much as we can from this experience.”
Sitake said some reassessment is in order. It starts with him. What worked against the likes of Boise State and Stanford last year, and even Arkansas this year, isn’t going to necessarily work against these speedy, athletic and ultra-talented Big 12 teams in October and November.
“Some times you have to pivot and figure out other ways to do things,” he said. “You just can’t keep doing the same things and expect the results to change. We definitely have to pivot and do some things. But they are all within the realm of our capabilities. … We have the players and the talent to do it.”
That’s debatable, based on what transpired Saturday afternoon in Cowtown.
