Make BYU an underdog on the road against UCF on a four-game losing streak?
Oddsmakers might as well have poured gasoline on Gus Malzahn’s Knights and tossed a match at him and his struggling squad.
BYU took offense on Saturday. And defense.
A complete game.
Kalani Sitake’s crew flew across two time zones to Florida and, in Orlando’s muggy humidity, got off the bus and threw haymaker after haymaker at UCF in a brutalizing 37-24 beat down.
In reality, the win should have been a 48-14-type victory. It was that lopsided, a statement kind of game after a close thriller at home against Oklahoma State.
It was a master class by BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick, defensive coordinator Jay Hill and special teams coordinator Kelly Poppinga.
The dominant performance elevated No. 11 BYU to 8-0 and 5-0 in the Big 12, just one week before the CFP’s first rankings are announced. BYU heads into a bye week before playing at rival Utah.
Good timing.
BYU took UCF’s scary run game, the nation’s No. 2 ground attack, and squeezed it like a python committing a felony on a raccoon. The Cougars raced to a 17-0 lead, took a breather, then threw another roundhouse punch with Chase Roberts’ slithering 62-yard TD bomb on a 32-second, 75-yard drive to close the first half at 24-10.
It was a play that broke UCF.
BYU let UCF star RJ Harvey get loose on a couple of big yardage runs, but everyone does.
Harvey never consistently hurt a Cougar defense that got interceptions from Isaiah Glasker and freshman safety Faletau Satuala.
Instead, BYU bulldozed its way to its own breakout run attack. Led by a dominant offensive line, quarterback Jake Retzlaff ripped off a 29-yard touchdown run to put BYU up 7-0 on its first possession. LJ Martin gained 101 yards on 15 carries and Hinckley Ropati had 83 yards on 13 totes.
As a team, BYU outrushed the Big 12′s best running attack by more than 70 yards (252-181). It should have been by 100, but UCF’s backup quarterback Dylan Rizk ripped off 30 yards on keepers against BYU’s prevent defense and reserves as the game wound down.
BYU’s defense neutralized Miami transfer QB Jacurri Brown and made him as ineffective as a Tesla without a charger.
Roderick called a game that dictated time of possession, riding Martin and Ropati’s legs and having Retzlaff take off for runs in a timely manner, just enough to keep UCF’s front seven honest.
BYU had the ball 40:28 to UCF’s 19:32, flipping the script, as Malzahn likes to do.
Giving Malzahn just 20 minutes with the ball was like hiding the bottle from a screaming baby. That ploy kept Harvey, Brown and company on the sideline watching the game.
Brown, who chewed up Iowa State last week with 150 yards rushing in Ames, gained just 9 yards against the Cougars.
BYU outgained UCF 480 to 379 in total yards.
The Cougars were effectively balanced with 228 pass and 252 rush yards. It marked the second straight game BYU ran for more than 250, with 255 last week against OSU.
It was impressive that the Cougar offensive line, including third-string center Bruce Mitchell, effectively wore down UCF’s talented front seven with physical play and execution. Ropati was ripping off 18-yard runs in the fourth quarter.
In the end, it was a streaking, confident BYU squad that presented a complete game in all three phases against a struggling UCF team. The Knights’ now five-game losing streak illustrated Malzahn’s job is a tough one heading into November.
UCF just signed a No. 39 ranked recruiting class in 2024, according to 247 Sports, and has an average of 56th in the past five years. The Knights were picked preseason to be in the Big 12′s top four or five.
In Malzahn’s national championship year at Auburn, his offense at Tulsa along with this year with the No. 2 rush attack, he’s always been considered a wizard.
Considering how Sitake has put together a complete team with coordinators, assistants and advisers that has surprised everyone with their achievements, isn’t it time to consider him some kind of wizard, too? Maybe Big Kahuna?
He’s molded together an extremely resilient, hungry, opportunistic team that plays not only for him but for one another.
Impressive, indeed, at 8-0.