After most complete game of season, Cougars turn attention to slumping Cincinnati as a slight favorite

There were a few dropped passes, including one that would have been a touchdown. There were a few penalties, including an iffy holding call that brought back a long run.

And there was a mishandled punt snap.

But for the most part, the BYU Cougars, who moved up to No. 11 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll released Sunday, put together their most complete game of the season late Saturday to demolish TCU 44-13 in front of 64,447 on a beautiful mid-November night at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

“I’ve been asking us to do this the whole time,” said coach Kalani Sitake. “So it is my job to get them to play this way every game. But I am glad it showed up now, especially in November, when we can try to build some momentum off it.”

Momentum was in short supply after last week’s 29-7 loss at No. 6 Texas Tech, so credit has to go to Sitake and his staff, and the players, for rebounding nicely against an opponent that has given BYU fits over the years, TCU. The Cougars kept their confidence intact, started fast, and truly looked like a top-10 team against the Horned Frogs, who came in having lost three games, but only one by more than three points.

“It was phenomenal. I think it feels great. And I think the boys recognized that it started on Monday, and we were down and frustrated, but we put our head down and went to work,” said Keanu Tanuvasa. “That’s Kalani’s culture.”

Now that culture will be tested in a different way. Can the Cougars ignore the accolades and praise garnered from Saturday night’s sensational performance and get back to work with another huge contest on the horizon?

BYU (6-1, 9-1) takes its second-place standing in the Big 12 and College Football Playoff at-large bid hopes into Cincinnati to face the angry Bearcats (5-2, 7-3), who were upset by Arizona 30-24 Saturday afternoon at Nippert Stadium.

Kickoff is at 6 p.m. MST (8 p.m. in Cincinnati) and the game will be televised nationally by Fox, it was announced Sunday morning. Also, Fox announced that its “Big Noon Kickoff” pregame show will be broadcast live from Cincinnati on Saturday morning (8 a.m. MST).

The Cougars control their own destiny as far as getting into the Big 12 championship game in Arlington, Texas, on Dec. 6 is concerned. Beat Cincinnati on Saturday and UCF on Nov. 29 in Provo, and they are in.

Tanuvasa said they will continue to focus on improvement, rather than what they’ve done in the past.

“I think it just goes back to Kalani’s culture. Kalani was (saying) that we haven’t played our best game. We really haven’t, and I think we saw more of that tonight. I think there’s still room for us to improve. Special teams, defense and offense-wise,” he said. “But the message was we need to be us, and we have to have a sense of urgency this week, recognizing that now we have one loss on the record, and we did that tonight.”

The Cougars got back to playing complementary football against TCU, as the offense racked up 447 yards and didn’t turn the ball over. The defense held TCU to 298 yards and forced two turnovers, interceptions by Tanner Wall and Faletau Satuala. Will Ferrin booted three field goals.

“The urgency is so critical, but to have our destiny in our hands, our agency of where we’re going to go, it adds that diligence throughout the week, and we’re committed,” Tanuvasa said. “We’ll enjoy it tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll review, make the corrections we need, and then we’re moving on. We’re ready, and we’re going to move on and be the best we can be next week as well.”

BYU’s defense made life difficult for TCU QB Josh Hoover, who was 10 of 23 for 183 yards and two interceptions in the worst game of his three-year career. Up next for BYU is another solid QB, Cincinnati’s Brendan Sorsby.

The 6-foot-3 junior from Denton, Texas, is more of a dual-threat QB than Hoover, although he played with a bit of a limp in the disappointing loss to visiting Arizona. Sorsby completed only 53.6% of his passes for 154 yards and one touchdown against the Wildcats.

TCU came in as one of the best teams in the country on third down, but were just 1 of 10 against Jay Hill’s defense. Wall said he’s confident the defensive coordinator will have a good game plan in store for Sorsby and the Bearcats.

“Our front seven played extremely well, knocking out the run even in our two high (safeties) stuff,” Wall said. “We executed the scheme extremely well, and the pass rush was great, too. We got a lot of pressure on Hoover.”

A new batch of CFP rankings will be released Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. MST on ESPN. With Texas losing Saturday, BYU should jump from No. 12 to No. 11, but stranger things have happened. Sitake told the Deseret News that he “doesn’t get involved” in worrying about whether or not BYU is being treated fairly by the CFP selection committee.

Last week, BYU fell from No. 7 to No. 12 after losing badly at Texas Tech, even though 22 points was Tech’s smallest margin of victory of the season. Three teams with two losses — Notre Dame, Texas and Oklahoma — are ranked ahead of the 9-1 Cougars.

“We are just gonna keep playing ball,” Sitake said. “So, yeah, I am probably the wrong guy to ask about that stuff. We just play ball.”

BYU jumped from No. 17 to No. 14 in ESPN’s FPI rankings and is now one of eight teams with at least four wins against bowl-eligible opponents.

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