Injuries Marred BYU’s Win Over TCU

TCU had a drive going and had moved the ball 55 yards when the BYU defense capitalized on an opportunity. Faletau Satuala came up with a huge interception that he returned 59 yards, setting Bear Bachmeier and company up inside the red zone at the TCU 16-yard line. BYU struggled into a third-and-goal from the ten when they went back to what worked a lot last year. Bear Bachmeier took the snap, looked at his receivers, saw them covered, and ran up the middle and dove into the end zone for a BYU touchdown. TCU would respond with a touchdown. The injuries continued to hurt BYU, as Legend Glasker and Cannon DeVries were both dinged up, too. The 7-7 halftime score seemed much heavier than normal.

Second Half

BYU started the second half by forcing a TCU punt. The Cougars then went on a bit of a drive. On 10 plays and taking 6:00 off the clock, BYU gained a modest 30 yards. They did end it with points when kicker Matthias Dunn made a 49-yard field goal to take a 10-7 lead. The game would continue to be a slogging match, and BYU would lean heavily on their defense.

Fourth Quarter

Midway through the fourth quarter, TCU took the ball into BYU territory, and the Cougars’ defense dug deep and got a stop. TCU went for a field goal to tie the game and missed it. BYU’s offense came alive in crunch time. And they did so, carried on the back of a bear.

Bear Bachmeier would take BYU on a 10-play, 72-yard drive that would take 5:55 off the clock, leaving only 2:06 to go in the game. Bachmeier would punctuate the drive with a 21-yard touchdown run. #47 had 40 yards rushing on that drive for the Cougars. TCU would get a field goal to cut the 17-7 lead to seven. BYU would recover the onside kick and kneel out the 17-10 victory to move to 4-0. It’s the third straight season of a 4-0 start and the first time in program history they’ve had three straight 4-0 starts to a season.

Mountain Lion Hearted

Bear Bachmeier came through big for BYU, especially in crunch time. He didn’t turn the ball over in the rainy conditions on offense and was effective running the football when he was needed to. The Cougars had an ugly game of only 216 yards of total offense, and Bachmeier accounted for 128 of them and both BYU touchdowns.

The lesser trouble for BYU (and the Big 12) is that they need style points. I mentioned after the Colorado State win that they need to beat teams by as much as they can, and not care about those teams’ feelings. Any team in the Big 12 would need to do the same if they were chasing the College Football Playoff. The worse problem is the injuries. How long are LJ Martin, Isaiah Glasker, Cannon DeVries, Cade Uluave, and Siale Esera out with injuries? BYU might have preferred to lose this game and keep those players healthy rather than win and risk losing some stars to injury. Only time will tell, but I’m glad this man is the head coach of the Cougars.

Up Next, Iowa State

BYU will host Iowa State on Friday night back in LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo. ISU got beat by Utah 31-17 last week, and this week they won a 42-38 shootout against West Virginia. BYU will have to watch out for the Cyclones and not look past them with the Notre Dame game coming up the week after that.