Analysis: Late-arriving BYU bounces UCF 41-21 on Senior Day, but is it too late for style points?

For the first quarter of No. 11 BYU’s regular-season finale on Senior Day in front of 60,389 shivering fans at LaVell Edwards Stadium Saturday, the Cougars didn’t look anything like a team that should be playing in the Big 12 championship game, let alone the College Football Playoff.

But the final three quarters showed just the opposite, as BYU overcame an early two-touchdown deficit that had everybody in the place looking on in disbelief — the fourth time this season the Cougars have trailed by 14 points in a game — and rallied for a convincing 41-21 win to finish undefeated at home for the first time since 2020.

BYU (8-1, 11-1), who knew before the contest that it was already in the conference title game next Saturday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, against No. 5 Texas Tech, played like that out of the gates.

It appeared the Cougars had no interest in style points, although it is probably too late for those to convince the CFP selection committee that they deserve an at-large bid if they are not the Big 12’s automatic qualifier.

After BYU went on a 41-7 run upon falling behind 14-0 to a UCF (5-7) team that was fighting to become bowl eligible and looked like that in its first two drives, the Cougars looked like outfit that rose to No. 7 in the CFP before the Texas Tech debacle in Lubbock.

Head coach Kalani Sitake wasn’t exactly sure what accounted for the abysmal start.

“Obviously didn’t start out the right way, and I give credit to UCF,” Sitake said. “They did some really cool things, put our defense on our heels. … It was good for us, and just shows how smart (UCF coach) Scott (Frost) is and his offensive mind. … He was able to put us in some tough positions with our coverages, so it is good that we saw that, because we get to fix it for next time.”

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After that shaky start — very reminiscent of the start against Colorado in BYU’s eventual 24-21 win in Boulder — the Cougars’ defense settled down and their offense suddenly got going after a three-and-out on its opening possession.

Powered by some runs by LJ Martin and Bear Bachmeier, some outstanding catch-and-runs by Parker Kingston and Carsen Ryan and Bachmeier’s timely and accurate passes, the offense found some rhythm and then couldn’t be stopped.

“Unfortunately, we’ve been there a couple times (this season) and you don’t want to be there. But it was (turned around) by just trusting the guy next to you,” Bachmeier said. “… Obviously, we just gotta start faster.”

That will be especially true next week, when BYU can get into the CFP if it can beat Texas Tech (11-1) at Jerry’s World in front of what will likely be a pro-Tech crowd, Lubbock being only a six-hour drive from the Metroplex.

The Red Raiders didn’t need to win Saturday, either, but still pounded woeful West Virginia 49-0 in Morgantown.

Afterward, Tech coach Joey McGuire said that both BYU and Texas Tech should be in the CFP, regardless of what happens in the rematch of Tech’s 29-7 blasting of the Cougars three weeks ago.

Offered an opportunity to campaign for BYU’s admission into the field of 12 by being asked about Texas coach Steve Sarkisian’s claim that leaving out the three-loss Longhorns would be doing a “disservice” to college football, Sitake declined, which has been his stance for weeks.

“I don’t have all the answers. I can’t really speak (about) other teams, but there are a lot of good football teams out there in all conferences,” he said.

“I do like the system now, because it allows more (teams) to play in it, other than the computer telling us the final two. We are in a much better spot now.”

All four players BYU brought to the postgame news conference — Bachmeier, Martin, linebacker Jack Kelly and cornerback Evan Johnson — said the Cougars should be in. No surprise there.

“We think so,” said Kelly, one of 23 players who participated in the Senior Walk from end zone to end zone after the game. “We have believed it from the beginning.”

Said Sitake, whose teams are now 22-3 over the course of the past two seasons: “The next best thing to being 12-0 is 11-1, and that’s what we are … Really excited about opportunity to be in this position.”

Bachmeier and Martin were again the catalysts, as the quarterback overcame a fumble the first play of the game that lost 10 yards and was almost flawless after that.

The freshman completed 21 of 25 passes — one incompletion was a blatant drop — for 289 yards and a touchdown, and also ran the ball nine times for 32 yards (before three sacks in the first half were taken out of the equation).

Martin picked up 95 yards and scored three touchdowns on 22 carries, while also catching five passes for 35 yards.

With leading receiver Chase Roberts (hamstring) sidelined, Kingston picked up the slack, and then some. The junior from Roy caught six passes for 126 yards and a touchdown and added a 55-yard punt return for a touchdown, this third punt return of his career to tie him for third-most ever by a Cougar.

“We had some really cool things happen in this game,” Sitake said. “I really want to use this momentum going into next week. … Even though we had some adversity, the guys didn’t lose faith, they didn’t panic. I would like to see us start faster next time.”

Perhaps the play that turned it all around for BYU’s defense — which gave up 142 yards and two touchdowns on UCF’s first two possessions — was an interception by Johnson that gave BYU the ball at the UCF 29.

Although the Cougars didn’t cash in — Will Ferrin missed a 40-yard field goal — it got a sleepy crowd back in the game and seemed to inspire BYU’s defense.

The Knights put together a 10-play, 80-yard touchdown drive in the third quarter, but other than that they were shut down by BYU’s late-arriving defense. UCF finished with 296 yards, while the Cougars had 407.

“We’ve been down before, so it wasn’t like something we are not used to,” Johnson said.

Safety Raider Damuni caused — with some help from Kelly — and recovered a fumble early in the fourth quarter to halt another UCF drive, but once again BYU came away empty as Ferrin missed a 48-yarder.

BYU will have to play much cleaner on defense and special teams if it hopes to stay close to Texas Tech next week, Sitake acknowledged.

“We’re all human,” he said when asked if there was too much complacency other. “We have never been in this position before. “We had never been in this position before.”

Ferrin later partially atoned for his misses with a 50-yard field goal that gave BYU a 41-21 lead with 3:53 left.

If there was another stat to nitpick about, it was that UCF was 6 of 13 on third down and 2 of 4 on fourth down. Credit Knights quarterback Tayven Jackson for making some outstanding plays early to keep drives alive.

“We were too excited and were trying to make plays instead of letting plays come to us,” said Kelly, who had six tackles and two sacks in what was probably his final game at LES.

“I wish I could have played here all four years,” said the Weber State transfer.

BYU took its first lead at the end of the first half when Ferrin made a 26-yard field goal. That was mildly disappointing — in terms of the hunt for style points — because BYU had driven to the UCF 6 before the drive stalled.

Despite one the best games of his career, all while battling a stomach bug, Kingston gave away a touchdown a few plays earlier when the turf monster caught him and tripped him up at the UCF 21 when he was streaking to the end zone.

But all’s well that ends well, and BYU is in a conference championship game for the first time since 1998, when it was in the WAC.

“I think we deserve to be in the CFP,” Bachmeier said. “I think we got a great team.”

For the last three quarters Saturday afternoon, they were exactly that.