Copyright Salt Lake Tribune
A ray of light now shines on battered BYU, a team that sorely needs whatever illumination it can find after the way the Cougars set back offensive football about a half-century against Texas Tech on Saturday. If they win their three remaining games — a decent possibility, unless one bad loss leads to another — they’ll sit at 11-1 and qualify for the Big 12 championship game. The looming dark cloud that hovers menacingly is that, even if BYU were to make it to Arlington, it likely would have to play Texas Tech, again. What masochistic soul wants that? What kind of nightmare would that be for the Cougars? None at all, according to senior receiver Chase Roberts. When asked about that possibility, he said: “We’re going to meet them again. Promise you that. And we’re gonna go beat ‘em.” Really? In truth, their daubers way down, the Cougars might lose subconsciously just to avoid that second dose of humiliation. Most certainly, humiliation is what they had put upon them by the Red Raiders on this first go-round, causing them to limp out of Lubbock not just defeated, but red-cheeked. The final count on the board — 29-7. And the combined physical and psychological margin was far more devastating. They got crushed. Anyone who spins it differently is whistling in the aforementioned dark. The ABC cameras beaming the one-sided action across the country turned the scene — at least for BYU — to black. “We just didn’t do enough against a really good team,” Kalani Sitake said afterward. “… They found a way to play better than we did.” By about 872 miles, the distance from Provo to Lubbock. “This is going to be a great experience to learn from,” he continued. “We’ll look forward to getting better.” The Cougars couldn’t have been much worse. “Texas Tech made things difficult,” he added. Said Roberts: “They’re a good defense. I felt we left a lot out there, though, we just needed to make plays. We failed to do so. … We’re such a good team. It sucks when we don’t play like that.” Better said, the BYU offense went AWOL, the special teams were abysmal, leaving the defense to fend for itself, something it could do for a while, but only a short while. As the offense never came around, the things that had defined BYU’s success thus far this season went missing. In reality, they never showed up. Confidence? Absent. Composure? Shattered. Cool-headedness? Gone. Cockiness? Only Roberts hinted at it, and that was after the game was over. Comeback chances? None. The bravado the Cougars had displayed after every one of their previous victories — “I knew we were going to win,” and the like, so often heard in postgames past — wasn’t heard much this time. Although Roberts did make his pronouncement. Whether he himself or any of his teammates really believe what he said is in question. The way it looked on the field, all the C-terms ducked out down a back alley along with one more word so important to the Cougars. Credibility. There was so much attention paid to this game, so much build-up, so much hype — what with College Game Day on site and the network’s national audience, so curious to see what would happen between the College Football Playoffs’ seventh- and eighth-ranked teams, dialed in to see what kind of excellence would emerge out of the battle. It was all one-sided. Texas Tech stood tall. enhancing its reputation while BYU shrunk away, looking nervous, unprepared, overmatched and downright scared — at least whenever it took possession of the ball. It helped the Cougars not at all to be playing in such an energized, hostile environment. But any team freaked out by that invited upon itself what it deserved, what it received — exposure and embarrassment. The biggest game of the season, then, turned out to be the worst for BYU. The Cougars’ special teams were lousy, including a muffed punt, recovered by TTU, leading to an early score, a shanked punt, a missed field goal, and a kick return that pinned the offense on its own 15-yard line. But the primary cause for so much ineptitude was that feckless offense. There was no there, there. No Bear, either. Bear Bachmeier, who had smoothed over almost everything that typically defines a freshman quarterback in earlier games, allowed his inner-froshness to erupt, splattering ineffectiveness throughout. He hit on 23 of 38 passes for 188 yards, averaging just 4.9 yards, with one late touchdown that mattered little, an interception, a backward pass covered by the Red Raider defense. He ran for 12 yards on 11 carries. Not all of that was Bachmeier’s fault, naturally, on account of the importance of rocksteady blocking up front and targets getting open and actually catching the ball, and rushing attempts advancing it. But the Tech defense did make the young QB look uncertain and uncomfortable. And both of those qualities were evidenced through everyone on attack. “We can’t blame it on one guy,” said Sitake. It helped Bachmeier little that BYU’s usually productive run game was shut down, which is what Texas Tech’s defense aims to do and often accomplishes its aims. LJ Martin, coming off an injured shoulder, did not run with the same ferociousness as is his norm. And the offensive play-calling, especially early, was unimaginative and conservative. The whole operation was a mix of skittish and jumpy. All told, the offense gained a season-low 255 yards, and just 67 rushing yards, a third of what the Cougars’ average. A lack of rhythm and, ultimately, a mere seven points were the result. “They were committed to stopping the run,” said Sitake, “and the pass game, we weren’t able to make things happen enough. Turnovers were an issue.” Meanwhile, the defense tried to keep the Cougars in the game, making big plays — a flurry of sacks — and stopping some drives, but also giving up huge plays. With almost no support coming from its mates on the other side of the ball, that resistance fractured, too. The whole of it was a serious beatdown that the Cougars — coaches and players — will have to dissect and find answers for. At least if they actually plan to keep winning their last regular-season games and keep hope alive for that rematch in the Big 12 title game. Again, if that’s what they really desire. Question is, did Tech break BYU? Beats me. Nobody knows at present. The Cougars’ confidence and other mental aspects, which had seemed to be a strength of this team, had to be shook on this occasion. That’s easy to understand when the other guys are simply better than you are. That’s what looked to be the case on Saturday. Somewhere in their minds and hearts, the Cougars said afterward, they are at a minimum better than what they showed here, which wasn’t much. They must be better than they played or they wouldn’t be 8-1, 5-1 in the Big 12. Their intent, their task in front of them is not to fade away, rather it’s to close the gap between what they really are and the incompetence they put on the field against the best team in the league. “We will be back,” Sitake said. “We’ll find a way to improve. … We’ve got to get back to work.” If not, empty words and humiliation lurk, still.
