Few losses in the long, sometimes glorious and sometimes maddening history of BYU football will be remembered as painfully as Saturday night’s 17-13 setback to the Kansas Jayhawks at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
Call it simply being unlucky.
Call it mistake-filled.
Call it the clock striking midnight on BYU’s magical season at 11:37 p.m. MST, some 23 minutes to spare before Cinderella turned into a team that couldn’t find paydirt when it mattered most.
Call it offensive ineptitude in the red zone finally catching up to the Cougars, as it almost did in last week’s 22-21 win over rival Utah.
Looking for someone to blame? There’s plenty of that to go around, too.
As some of the pundits on social media who have been calling BYU’s 9-0 start a whole lot of smoke and mirrors gleefully extolled, the Cougars had nine lives, but not a 10th, in front of a sellout crowd of 62,704 on a freezing night in Provo.
Two plays — one boneheaded and the other just unfortunate — are the primary reasons why BYU (9-1, 6-1) heads to Tempe, Arizona, next week without its perfect record intact.
“Way too many mistakes for us to come out with the victory,” Cougars coach Kalani Sitake said.
That’s an understatement.
Perhaps the biggest one came just before halftime. After tight end Mata’ava Ta’ase’s 16-yard catch gave BYU the ball at the 5-yard-line with just under a minute left and two timeouts, BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff tried to throw a fade pass to Ta’ase, but it was easily picked off by KU’s Mello Dotson, who appeared to be the intended receiver on the play.
It was eerily reminiscent of the pick-six Retzlaff threw against Oklahoma last year when the Cougars were poised to take control of that game.
“Stupid play at the end (of the half),” Sitake told the BYU Sports Radio Network. “Can’t do that.”
Sitake was still as livid about it after the game, saying, “Not good enough. We gotta fix it. We gotta figure it out.”
So the game was tied 10-10 at halftime, instead of the Cougars having some momentum and putting some doubt in the visitors’ minds.
“Offense has to score more points,” Sitake said of a unit that has scored just two touchdowns in its last two games after looking like world-beaters in the 37-24 win over UCF. “We made some field goals, didn’t really take advantage of the return game. We gotta score more points to win games.
“The run game was working,” Sitake said of the ill-fated pick. “The turnover at the end of the half cost us.”
Let’s just say this was not BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick’s best night.
After the costly interception ended the first half, BYU got the ball first in the second half and went on a 17-play, 66-yard drive that took 10:26 off the clock.
Problem is, BYU had to settle for a field goal and Will Ferrin’s 35-yarder gave the Cougars a 13-10 lead with 4:30 left in the third quarter.
The Cougars would not score again.
On Kansas’ first possession of the third quarter, the Jayhawks converted on a 3rd-and-1 and a 3rd-and-8 to get to the BYU 31. After Isaiah Glasker dropped a possible interception and the Cougars sacked KU QB Jalon Daniels to put the Jayhawks into a 4th-and-14 situation, Daniels got off a quick punt that bounced off BYU defender Evan Johnson’s helmet and was recovered, ultimately, by Kansas at the BYU 3 yard line after Jakob Robinson hurriedly dove on the loose pigskin and couldn’t corral it.
Sitake said Kansas had never shown the quick punt on film.
“I thought they were going to go for it, because that’s what they have done in the past. We haven’t seen him kick that QB kick. … It just caught us by surprise,” Sitake acknowledged.
“Even then we had a chance to recover it. Sometimes things like that happen. You just gotta get a stop. I don’t like that we played average defense and still gave up a touchdown (when they got ball on 3).”
Devin Neal, the leading rusher in KU history, took it in from the 3 for what turned out to be the game-winner with 13:19 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Neal was held to 52 yards on 14 carries and KU picked up only 242 yards, but this time it was the opponent catching the fortunate break instead of BYU.
“Yeah, it was a couple unlucky bounces. I think (BYU cornerback) Evan Johnson was in coverage and it hit him in the head, and then Jakob Robinson was right there and I thought he had a clear path to just recover it, and for some reason it popped out of his hands and they got the ball at the 3 yard line,” Sitake said.
“It sucks, but I think that happens. That’s why the ball is shaped like that, to make things interesting. It just bit us in the butt this time.”
BYU went three and out and then four and out on its next two possessions, lost possessions that were just as responsible for the loss as the one at the end of the game.
On the fateful final possession, BYU took over at its 20 and easily moved the ball to the KU 15. With 2:00 left, the Cougars tried to milk the clock too much, with two running plays that netted just 4 yards.
On 3rd and 6 from the 11, Retzlaff audibled out of the play and ran a speed option to the boundary side; Hinckley Ropati got nothing.
Then a false start turned a 4th-and-6 into a 4th-and-11, and Retzlaff’s pass to Chase Roberts gained only 8 yards.
Ball game. Winning streak over. Perfect season over.
“I think (Retzlaff) audibled out of the play. You just gotta get the ball in the end zone. You can’t have it come down to the wire on fourth down. Then we had a false start,” Sitake said.
“I thought we had a really good play on that one and it became 4th and 10 and now we are too far. I think Chase was a couple yards short of the first down.”
The lesson learned?
“Just get it in the end zone,” Sitake said. “I don’t really care how much time is left on the clock. Obviously they were taking timeouts to get the ball back, but we gotta get the lead before we can even worry about that stuff.”
Roberts, who had five catches for 71 yards, including a 24-yard reception across the middle that got BYU into scoring range, said he didn’t have time to get to the sticks because Retzlaff was pressured and had to unload it early.
“We need to start beating teams by 20 points, 30 points, because that’s the type of offense we have, that’s the kind of team we have,” Roberts said. “We should have won this game.”
The mistakes started early. On Neal’s 8-yard touchdown run on KU’s first possession that staked the Jayhawks to a quick 7-0 lead and gave the underdogs confidence they could hang with the No. 6 Cougars, BYU had just 10 men on the field.
Twice on that drive BYU defensive backs fell down, although one could have been called offensive pass interference.
On BYU’s second possession, Retzlaff had Darius Lassiter open deep and overthrew him by 5 yards. BYU’s QB also had Keelan Marion open deep and threw the ball to the wrong shoulder.
Retzlaff was 18 of 28 for 192 yards and a touchdown, with the interception, for a passer rating of 126.5.
BYU outgained Kansas 354-242 and had 23 first downs to KU’s 13. BYU averaged 5.6 yards per play, the Jayhawks 4.7. Too many self-inflicted wounds and too much inefficiency in the red zone doomed BYU to one of its most damaging losses of the Sitake era.
“You would think from what our defense did, it should be enough to get (more) points on the board. I know (defensive coordinator) Jay Hill is not happy with how we played, because we felt like we could have done better. All three phases can improve,” Sitake said.
“The guys are hurting right now. They are supposed to. We have to get over it, just like we have to get over the wins. We gotta find ways to be humble and not get down on ourselves too much, because we are in a really good spot still. I think what we have done throughout the year, we have earned the right to feel better now. We won’t get this one back, so we have to play better next week.”
Certainly, it was one the Cougars simply gave away.
