Analysis: BYU aces another supposedly difficult test, stays unbeaten with rout of late-arriving UCF

ORLANDO, Fla. — Long after the No. 11 BYU Cougars had easily dispatched another opponent that was supposed to be able to wreck their perfect season, plucky Cougars quarterback Jake Retzlaff answered yet another question about his team being disrespected by national pollsters and Las Vegas oddsmakers alike.
He’s getting good at answering them in news conferences, just like BYU is getting good at answering doubters on the field.
Retzlaff, who had just thrown for 228 yards and two touchdowns and gained 61 yards and scored a TD running with the ball in a 37-24 romp over UCF in front of 42,144 at FBC Mortgage Stadium, started to click off all the barriers that naysayers have said would trip up the now 8-0 Cougars.
“What is it? Day games? Traveling across the country? I don’t know what excuse the (doubters) are going to come up with next,” Retzlaff said, alluding to the fact that UCF (3-5, 1-4) was favored by 2 1/1 points despite its lengthy losing streak and losing record.
“But yeah, we definitely took two and a half (points) personally. I would say our locker room looked at that and got a little extra fired up, for sure.”
Whatever works.
Everything was working for BYU on an 85-degree afternoon in central Florida, as the Cougars rolled out to a 31-10 lead midway through the third quarter and coasted from there.
Homestanding UCF, which actually had fewer fans in the stands than BYU did at the third-quarter break, made a late quarterback change and made it “a little interesting” in the fourth quarter, in the words of BYU coach Kalani Sitake, but all that did was make the final score appear closer than the game actually was.
The Knights outscored the Cougars 14-3 in the fourth quarter thanks to fourth-stringer Dylan Rizk entering the game for a mostly ineffective starting QB Jacurri Brown and spurring UCF with a 60-yard TD drive and a 29-yard touchdown pass to Jacoby Jones.
The end of the second quarter and third quarter is where this BYU team has gotten it done, however, and Saturday afternoon was no different.
BYU has outscored opponents 93-23 in the third quarter this season.
Suffice it to say, it added up to another comfortable win for the Cougars, who seemed to need it after eking out the 38-35 win over Oklahoma State in Provo eight days ago.
Did the Cougars get too comfortable in the fourth quarter?
Sure, a little bit, but that’s nit-picking. This was as impressive of a win as BYU has had this season, and that includes the 38-9 plastering of Kansas State.
After Isaiah Glasker’s interception gave the Cougars the ball at the UCF 27 and sent hundreds, if not thousands, of UCF faithful scurrying to the exits with 5:48 left in the third quarter, BYU had an opportunity to really make a statement, but didn’t. Sitake’s team still hasn’t quite found a killer instinct.
Three running plays — one by Retzlaff and two by Hinckley Ropati — failed to pick up a first down and BYU settled for a 37-yard field goal by Will Ferrin to take a 34-10 lead.
A long drive in the fourth quarter took 6:04 off the clock and stalled in UCF territory, but Ferrin was good again, this time from 36 yards out, and that concluded BYU’s scoring.
Most pollsters and viewers had probably turned their attention to another, more competitive game at that point, but if there is such a thing as style points, the Cougars failed to capitalize on them when they were there to be had. Time will tell.
“I think we moved the ball pretty well,” Retzlaff said, after the Cougars registered 29 first downs and 480 yards. UCF finished with 379, but only 181 on the ground after rushing for 354 last week in a heartbreaking loss to No. 9 Iowa State in which it blew a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter in Ames.
“I know it was inching closer to 500 yards at the end. When you get close to 500 yards of offense, there is a good chance you are going to have a favorable result. I think we should have scored more touchdowns and kicked less field goals, in my opinion, but I don’t know. I gotta watch the film. I know 37 points is something to be pretty proud of.”
Sitake said what he usually does after convincing wins, noting that he was pleased “with all three phases” and disappointed in the one turnover. Retzlaff was stripped while trying to escape the pocket when a tight end missed a block, and UCF pounced on his fumble at midfield.
Other than that, the Cougars played cleanly when they really had to. There were few mildly concerning developments. Retzlaff was sacked three times, and the Cougars committed eight penalties — for 50 yards. There were times when BYU had to burn timeouts to avoid delay of game penalties, but that didn’t come back to hurt them.
“We wanted to be patient and make sure we played efficient football on offense and just kind of grind it out,” Sitake said. “I am happy with the way the guys responded.”
The coach isn’t diving into the “BYU is being disrespected” narrative as much as the players, but he still acknowledged that the entire program was well aware that it was an underdog some 2,100 miles from home and has traditionally struggled in the state of Florida.
Saturday’s win was BYU’s third straight in the Sunshine State, after it entered the Boca Raton Bowl in 2020 with a 0-8 record in Florida and pummeled these same Knights to turn their fortunes around in the land of Disney.
“We have said this from the beginning: We want to prove ourselves right more than anything, but it doesn’t hurt to prove some people wrong, too,” Sitake said.
“That’s not our drive. That’s not our focus. We know how good we can be, and I really think we can get better. Every week we are getting there, and I have (been) encouraging and challenging the leaders to take over the team and keep finding ways we can improve just a little bit.”
BYU’s offense served notice that it could move the ball effectively on the opening drive, going 75 yards in eight plays for the score. Retzlaff was the catalyst, throwing 12- and 20-yard receptions to Keelan Marion and Darius Lassiter before adding a 29-yard touchdown run.
The Cougars drove in UCF territory on their second possession, and special teams coordinator Kelly Poppinga dialed up another of his trick plays — a fake field goal. Holder Sam Vander Haar “hiked” the ball between his legs to kicker Ferrin, who ran 8 yards for a first down on 4th-and-5.
The successful fake didn’t pay dividends, however, as UCF’s defense held and Ferrin was called on to kick a 41-yarder to give BYU a 10-0 lead with 14:53 left in the second quarter.
BYU kept it rolling, going 92 yards for another touchdown, in eight plays. Lassiter’s 19-yard catch after Retzlaff was sacked kept the drive alive, and LJ Martin ran 15 yards for the TD a play after recovering his own fumble.
Martin finished with 101 yards on 15 attempts; Hinckley Ropati added 83 yards on 13 attempts, and was in there in the fourth quarter when BYU was grinding out the clock. BYU finished with 252 rushing yards and was 7 of 15 on third down, 2 of 2 on fourth down.
“We are close, man. We are having better and better games each week, and so it is fun to watch,” Retzlaff said. “It is fun to watch our progress throughout the season and know we are getting better. We are going to peak when the time is right.”
Although he rushed for 127 yards and two touchdowns, UCF’s RJ Harvey was mostly bottled up. Seventy-seven of Harvey’s yards came on two carries.
“We gave up some big plays, but we know the reason why,” Sitake said, alluding to a missed assignment and a missed tackle.
After BYU had taken a 17-0 lead on a 15-yard Martin run midway through the second quarter, Harvey shook loose for a 54-yard run to the 2, then took it in the next play to cut BYU’s lead to 17-7 with 7:02 left in the first half.
It looked like a shootout was brewing.
That was especially true after BYU seemingly had UCF pinned deep after a booming Vander Haar punt, but a tunnel screen to Jones went for 16 yards, and another long pass went for 40. UCF was hurt early when its top receiver, Kobe Hudson, left the game with a lower leg injury.
A taunting call on UCF QB Jacurri Brown caused a promising Knights drive to stall, however, and Grant Reddick’s 38-yard field goal made it 17-10.
BYU answered quickly, as Chase Roberts took a 3rd-and-8 pass from Retzlaff, made a defender miss, stayed inbounds, and sprinted 38 yards to the end zone. That gave BYU a 24-10 lead at the break, and Retzlaff 200 passing yards in the first two quarters. He had six throws of 15 or more yards in the first half.
BYU’s defense set the tone in the second half by forcing a three-and-out on UCF’s first series, and thwarted another drive when freshman Faletau Satuala picked off Brown. Remarkably, 11 different BYU players have accounted for the team’s 14 interceptions this season. That’s the most players with picks from the same team in the country.
The pick before that was Glasker’s second of the season.
“We seen that (they were favored),” Glasker said. “We know what we are capable of, and liked us being the underdog. We knew we had to come out here and fight. We knew they were a good team, so we prepared how we usually prepare and we came out on top.”