Two ranked teams, a national stage, a showdown between the ACC and Big 12, and an offering aside from the CFP drama are all what this year’s Pop-Tarts Bowl offers when No. 12 BYU and No. 22 Georgia Tech clash on Saturday in Orlando.
Georgia Tech comes in with a 9-3 record while the Cougars are 11-2, with a pair of losses to No. 4 Texas Tech. This will be a defensive game. It will also go a long way toward determining where each team appears in next year’s preseason AP Top 25 poll.
Both teams are in Orlando before Christmas and will go through a walkthrough on Friday before kickoff on Saturday. Bowl activities will involve players, coaches and staff throughout the week.
Georgia Tech lost out on a trip to the ACC championship game to play No. 19 (7-1) Virginia because of a crazy formula with tie-breakers between teams that finished in the league with 6-2 records — SMU, No. 10 Miami, Pitt and Duke. Because of this bloated ACC finish at the top, GT could have been the actual league champion if it had not been for a late-season loss to Pitt. In November, the team also lost to North Carolina State and No. 3-ranked Georgia 16-9.
What this tells you is GT is very capable of upsetting favored BYU on Saturday.
Under Kalani Sitake, the Cougars have had a decent bowl record. He gets his teams ready, keeps them engaged, and has built a culture where players want to be around each other and honor seniors.
GT did have offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner (OC of the Year by Football Scoop) leave for Florida and take a few offensive assistants with him. Also, running back coach Norval McKenzie left for Virginia Tech.
While this isn’t the CFP, which both these teams thought they’d be in when undefeated in October, it could be one of the more exciting matchups of the bowl season.
Cougar Insider predictions
Question of the week: What are your three keys for BYU’s success in the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando on Saturday? Predict the score.
Jay Drew: My first take in analyzing this game is that Georgia Tech is a better football team than many BYU fans believe it is. The Yellow Jackets gave No. 3 Georgia all it wanted a couple weeks ago in Atlanta, falling 16-9 to one of the favorites to win the College Football Playoff. Yes, Tech lost a couple games before that — to North Carolina State and Pitt — but at one time, it was a top-10 team, undefeated, and looking like a shoo-in for the ACC championship game.
So the biggest key for BYU is to not overlook this team, and believe it can just show up and get a win in Orlando. The Cougars will be tested, particularly their defense. Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King is a tremendous talent, and the kind of dual-threat QB that has traditionally given BYU fits in the past. This will be a dogfight, and not settled until the fourth quarter.
Second, BYU must get off to a fast start. It needs to get quarterback Bear Bachmeier in a groove early, and get him some confidence after things went south on him against Texas Tech in Arlington. Surely, Georgia Tech will apply a lot of pressure early to test the QB’s ailing left ankle.
Third, the Cougars have to win the turnover battle. Those two losses to Texas Tech were probably going to happen regardless, for a 7-0 disparity in turnovers kept the Cougars from making it close in either game. Georgia Tech has the ability to grind out the clock with its rushing attack if it gets ahead, or gets short fields. The Cougars need to take care of the ball to get their 12th win for the first time since 2001.
Prediction: BYU 24, Georgia Tech 21
Dick Harmon: This bowl game is unlike a year ago, when Colorado came to San Antonio and reportedly partied hard and got their butts kicked. GT will be a serious opponent that will give BYU all it can handle.
My concern for BYU is if quarterback Bear Bachmeier is healthy enough to execute the offense like he did this season. If Bachmeier isn’t able to be a run threat as the No. 2 leading rusher and with LJ Martin out, this will not be the kind of game the Cougars should have in Orlando — it will be fingers crossed.
The first key for me is turnovers. BYU lost to Texas Tech twice because of ineffective offensive plays and ill-timed turnovers that led to short fields. Do that against GT and it will be all over.
The second key is Jay Hill’s defense. Give him a few weeks to prepare for an offense. He’s been extremely effective at figuring out schemes to shut down offenses — or at least keep them out of the end zone, as per Utah, Arizona and Iowa State.
A third key is BYU’s offense. If Bachmeier is limited in his mobility, he’s got to be able to have a run game in order to trigger play action and force GT’s defense to move pieces around. Since he doesn’t have Martin, he’d better have the best game of the season targeting and delivering the ball to Parker Kingston, Chase Roberts, JJ Phillips and Carsen Ryan.
Prediction: BYU 21, GT 17
Cougar tales
For a month, BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa has been trending upward in college basketball, and in the Cougars’ final nonconference game against Eastern Washington, he made history.
Here are some of our stories chronicling what Dybantsa has accomplished in his first 13 games, with an emphasis on the last outing:
- Dybantsa proving generational talent (Jackson Payne)
- How social media reacted (Jackson Payne)
- Three takeaways from EWU game (Jackson Payne)
- Dybantsa shifting from supporter to performer (Dick Harmon)
- What are the odds AJ ends up a Jazz man? (Sarah Todd)
BYU women tipped off Big 12 play with road win over UCF as star sophomore Delaney Gibb returned to the lineup.
It didn’t take long for BYU to find a P4 replacement when Cal dropped the Cougars to fall in line with an ACC scheduling mandate. BYU just signed a home-and-home with Notre Dame.
From X-verse
Extra points
- Rob Wright III spreads holiday cheer (KSLsports)
- BYU, Notre Dame December opposite (Deseret News)
- Bowl is personal for cornerback (KSLradio)
Fanalysts
Comments from Deseret News readers:
I was at the game vs. Abilene Christian in the upper bowl. Still, I could not believe what I saw from AJ when he came up with the one-handed rebound dunk of Rob Wright’s miss! I wanted to see the replay thinking I must have been mistaken about what I thought I saw. AJ elevates so gracefully and effortlessly. He just hung in the air, snatched the rebound and slammed it home in one fluid motion. I have been going to BYU basketball since 1978 when I lived a couple hundred yards from the Marriott Center at Deseret Towers. I have never seen anything like AJ. Kid deserves all the hype. His 10-foot fadeaway jumper is almost automatic and he elevates so high that no one on Earth can block it.
— Lamar Savage
Notre Dame has very good players and a very good coach so it will be a difficult game for BYU, even at home. But, I think a lot of fans would be happy to see ND treated on par with other Power 4 schools and not be given advantages because of their brand. That’s all. Their decision to avoid a bowl game certainly cast a poor light on them and they have to live with some tarnish on their helmets because of it.
Looking forward to this game at LES. No. 1 most important win on the schedule is Utah, and No. 2 is ND. I also would love to see BYU beat ASU (not a fan of Dillingham).
— BYUSnowborder
Up next
- Dec. 27| 1:30 p.m. | football | Georgia Tech, Pop-Tarts Bowl
- Dec. 31 | 7 p.m. | women’s basketball | TCU
- Jan. 3 | TBA | swimming | Hawaii
- Jan. 3| 11:30 a.m.| men’s basketball | @ Kansas State
- Jan. 3 | 2 p.m. | women’s basketball | Arizona State
- Jan. 7 | 7 p.m. | women’s basketball | Arizona
- Jan. 7 | 7 p.m. | men’s basketball | @ Arizona State