They all want 9-1 (6-1) BYU to lose.
The first group is comprised of league brothers.
They are a club of four Big 12 football teams that stand at 5-2 in the league standings. They desperately want BYU to join their two-loss club, so there could be a convoluted five-way tiebreaker created after this Saturday.
If they all win and BYU loses to Cincinnati, they’ll achieve their wishes. They want tiebreakers. They want a chaotic morass of teams tied for second place behind one-loss Texas Tech.
What stands in the way of the Five Teams Tied Club is BYU, with its one loss.
The 5-2 club is comprised of Utah, Houston, Arizona State and Cincinnati.
A BYU loss to Cincy will give all of them a lifeline, a golden parachute.
A BYU win all but kills their tiebreaker fantasies.
The second group?
It is a CFP committee that has showed it would rather give the benefit to half a dozen SEC or Big Ten teams than BYU. And, well, Utah.
It relieves the committee of a lot of pain if BYU loses, so it can bump the Cougars down another four or five places and not deal with another Big 12 team like Texas Tech.
If there was ever an excuse for BYU head coach Kalani Sitake to sell his team the-chip-on-the-shoulder, us-against-the-world, we-don’t-have-respect-pregame speech, it is this weekend.
Sitake, his staff and players should all take Saturday’s game at Cincinnati very personally.
Cincinnati will have its Senior Night against the Cougars. How much fight do they have left after losing to Utah and Arizona?
The Bearcats will return star running back Evan Pryor for the meeting with BYU. His team, like most in November, is banged up.
“I just think you have to play a complete football game in all three phases,” Cincinnati coach Scott Satterfield said this week about the Bearcats’ losing streak.
“You have to be very, very solid. I think about the teams that are good at all three phases. They’re usually the teams on top. Think about Texas Tech right now, where they’re playing football.”
Satterfield praised BYU for being good in all three phases — on a nationally ranked level.
“If you have one side of the ball that is not doing what it’s supposed to do, it is going to be hard to win. You can still win, but it’s going to be a lot more difficult.”
It will take the BYU effort witnessed last week against TCU to win this game.
The Cougars cannot afford to break down on special teams, commit turnovers, drop passes, jump offsides or get flagged for holding against the Bearcats.
Freshman Bear Bachmeier will face a Cincinnati defense that drops seven or eight into coverage like Iowa State. It is more rare to see Cincinnati’s defense blitz or bring more than four rushers. This will put a premium on Bachmeier making good decisions against zone coverage in the pass game and launching an effective run game will help big time.
The Cougar defense will face talented Brendan Sorsby, a quarterback who can pile up points in a hurry. Defensive coordinator Jay Hill compared him to TCU’s Josh Hoover.
While many statistical matchups favor BYU, the Cougars are only a 2.5-point favorite.
This game looms big for so many folks, and it would be a typical BYU thing to bring itself to this point and choke. The Cougars’ loss at Texas Tech on ESPN’s “College GameDay” was filled with uncharacteristic mistakes — many caused by the Red Raiders, but others self-inflicted because of jitters in a big moment.
BYU has to do better in big-moment games.
The Raiders might still have won that game in Lubbock without BYU making mistakes, but it would have been closer and “looked better” to a CFP committee that values “looks.”
In basketball, the choke was getting to the Sweet 16 last spring only to have Alabama set an NCAA Tournament and school record for made 3-pointers on the Cougars.
A year ago, after a 9-0 start to the football season, the Cougars were ranked in the top 10, ready to go to Arlington and the CFP, but it all slipped out of their hands quicker than a punt ricocheting off a helmet.
BYU is now 20-3 the past two seasons and this game weighs as heavy as any of those 23. How will they deal with this big moment?
Sitake, throwing aside all the outside drama, rankings and style points, told reporters, “We just need to win.”
Kansas State at Utah: The Utes will kill Kansas State. With Jason Beck’s offense rolling and Utah winning by big margins, K-State will have its hands full trying to stop Utah’s multifaceted run attack.
Utah State at Fresno State: Bronco Mendenhall’s team put on a valiant fight against UNLV last week while battling to make a bowl with a sixth win. This again is the goal at Fresno State. But the Aggie meltdown with special teams, especially field goal kicking, has exposed a real Achilles heel for USU when in a tight fight. It will take an exceptional USU effort to win this on the road.
This week’s predictions
- Ohio State 42, Rutgers 13
- Texas A&M 38, Stanford 14
- Oklahoma 31, Missouri 28
- Miami 28, Virginia Tech 17
- Iowa State 27, Kansas 24
- Arizona 31, Baylor 28
- Oregon 24, USC 21
- Notre Dame 33, Syracuse 10
- Vanderbilt 28, Kentucky 14
- Texas 24, Arkansas 17
- Iowa 24, Michigan State 20
- Houston 24, TCU 21
- UCF 24, Oklahoma State 17
- Georgia Tech 27, Pittsburgh 21
- Utah 48, Kansas State 21
- Arizona State 24, Colorado 14
- Fresno State 24, Utah State 21
- BYU 28, Cincinnati 24
Last week: 17-2; overall 153-44 (.776)