Inside Darnell’s Head: Fire dancers bring the heat in BYU’s first Big 12 football win
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- A fire dancer performs at a BYU football game in LaVell Edwards Stadium during the 2023 season.
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- BYU fans react to a play during a college football game against Cincinnati at LaVell Edwards Stadium on Friday, September 29, 2023.
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- BYU mascot Cosmo plays a drum amidst a fireworks display during a football game against Cincinnati at LaVell Edwards Stadium on Friday, September 29, 2023.
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- BYU’s Talmage Gunther, left, and Raider Damuni celebrate after a fumble recovery in a college football game against Cincinnati on Friday, September 29, 2023.
Here’s what’s going on inside Darnell’s head during conference weekend. The leaves are changing and BYU got its first Big 12 victory. Those cinnamon rolls are tasting a little sweeter, aren’t they?
A fiery finish
Before the start of the fourth quarter of the BYU-Cincinnati football game on Friday, a fire dancing troupe wowed the crowd at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
As the dancers left the field, one of them had something to say to the Bearcats. Posters on social media said that the Cincinnati players squirted water bottles toward the dancers and had chirped at the them as well. Bearcats coach Scott Satterfield saw this and complained to the officials. I mean, the fire dancing dude was carrying a flaming baton just a few feet from his players. On the other hand, nobody forced Cincinnati to huddle 15 yards from their sideline during the time out.
It was a hilarious moment in a night filled with craziness.
Welcome to the Big 12, indeed.
BYU was totally outplayed by the visitors from the Queen City for nearly the entire first half, yet appeared to be going in at halftime trailing just 10-7. The Cougar offense was punchless (39 yards on its first 17 plays) and the defense couldn’t get off the field against the Bearcats and elusive quarterback Emory Jones.
Cincinnati kicked a field goal with 44 seconds left in the half for a 10-7 edge and after such a terrible start, conventional wisdom was for BYU to receive the kickoff, take a knee and escape into the locker room to reorganize.
Cougar offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick had other ideas.
It took just three plays and 38 seconds for BYU to fly 80 yards, the touchdown coming on a cleverly designed play that got Darius Lassiter wide open for a 22-yard score, and somehow the Cougars held a 14-10 lead in at halftime.
It was the start of four straight touchdown drives by BYU (with the help of a fumbled punt by Cincinnati) to take control of the game.
Roderick must have reached the very back page of his playbook, because nothing was working until that drive before the half.
The bottom line is BYU finished September 4-1 after Friday’s 35-27 win, the Cougars first Big 12 victory and first conference home W since 2011.
How it happened is still kind of a mystery that’s going to take a couple of times re-viewing of the game to figure things out.
“Now, Biff …”
The new royal blue end zones looked cool — for about an hour. The paint didn’t hold up against golf carts, the marching band and the two teams warming up before the game and faded quickly.
My mind went to the end of the movie “Back to the Future.”
End zone painters on Thursday night, probably: “Just putting the second coat on now, Mr. McFly.”
Perfectly Rational Overreactions (PRO’s)
Each week I give calm and measured takes on BYU football.
PRO No. 1: BYU was lucky to win the game.
What we’re seeing this season from this Cougar team is a ton of effort and resiliency but imperfect execution. Any close win takes a certain amount of luck. That’s part of the football.
Well, that and living right, according to former BYU receiver Austin Collie, right?
There aren’t many games you can get outgained by 200 yards and lose the time of possession number so convincingly yet still come out with a win.
This from CougarStats: Since 2001, when FBS teams are outgained by between 200 and 225 yards, they are 43-694 (0.058).
The two turnovers by Cincinnati (a pick-six from Jakob Robinson and a fumbled punt recovery by deep snapper Austin Riggs), obviously, made up the difference in this one. There were also two fourth-down stops by the Cougars and those really are turnovers as well.
Winning consistently like BYU did on Friday seems unsustainable, but that’s the team we’re seeing so far this year.
PRO No. 2: The BYU running game is still broken.
There were some signs of improvement. The Cougars finished with 70 yards on 28 carries (2.5 yards per carry). There was an 18-yard loss on the bad shotgun snap in the fourth quarter, so really it was around 90 yards rushing.
BYU started off trying to establish the run and picked up a couple of first downs on its first drive of the game. LJ Martin’s 29-yard touchdown run on 3rd and 13 in the third quarter was well blocked and Martin didn’t even break stride running through a tackle near the sticks before sprinting into the end zone. He’s special and showed what he can do once he gets to the second level. Miles Davis made his first appearance in the offense this season and showed the speed to get to the corner on a couple of runs.
However — and this was Sitake’s lament in the post-game — BYU had an opportunity to put the game away on two drives in the fourth quarter and the Cougars couldn’t do it. Sure, Cincinnati was stacking the line but here’s what BYU did on the ground on its final five carries: Zero yards, zero yards, minus one yard, minus one yard and one yard.
That’s got to get better, even against defenses that know you’re trying to run out the clock.
PRO No. 3: The Cougar defense was confused and pushed around by Cincinnati all game long.
Sitake admitted after the game there were more blown assignments on defense than usual. Not surprising since the Bearcats have a very diverse offense and BYU was subbing a lot of different players.
Not much worked in the first half for the defense. Its kryptonite was 2nd and long, which the Bearcats got out of easily numerous times. UC had a 17-play drive that seemed to break BYU’s defensive will in the first half, but somehow the Cougars managed to find a way to make key plays. The aforementioned fourth down stops — one in the first quarter and one in the fourth — were pretty big.
BYU faced a startling 84 plays in the game and allowed 498 yards, but only 27 points. Again, an imperfect performance but enough to get the victory.
And finally, PRO No. 4: If BYU had lost this game, they weren’t going bowling.
You could certainly make that argument. The rest of the schedule has some very difficult games (at TCU, at Texas, home vs. Oklahoma) along with what you’d have to consider toss-up games against Texas Tech, West Virginia, Iowa State and Oklahoma State. A loss at home to Cincinnati would have been devastating, both record-wise and emotionally heading into a bye week.
Instead, BYU is 4-1, 1-1 in Big 12 play and gets a week to heal up. Getting two wins in the next seven games seems pretty doable.
Better than you think
No. 14 Oklahoma scored only 20 points against Cincinnati (in a 20-6 win) last week. BYU scored 35 points (28 by the offense) on Friday.
Still undefeated
Once again I have made it through another General Conference and none of my former missionary companions are general authorities. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.
Who Carried the Boats and the Logs? (BYU version)
It would be easy to give this award to Kedon Slovis again after he woke up after a slow start to throw for 223 yards and two touchdowns. But the boats and logs on Friday were carried by Roberts, who was the best receiver on the field by about 100 miles. Roberts caught six passes for a career-high 131 yards and a touchdown against the Bearcats and also recovered the onside kick to seal the victory.
Puka Nacua was unquestionably WR1 last season but he’s tearing it up for the Rams in the NFL now. I wasn’t sure if the Cougars had a WR1 this year, especially since Kody Epps hasn’t been healthy enough to make any contributions, but Roberts made a strong case for it on Friday.
Roberts (at American Fork) and Nacua (at Orem) played high school football at the same time, both finishing their careers in 2018. Nacua’s numbers were insane (250 catches, 5,033 yards and 58 touchdowns) and all Utah prep records. But Roberts was pretty amazing as well in his three years as a starter with 217 catches for 3,653 yards and 42 TD’s.
That’s a lot of wide receiver talent coming out of Utah.
Frustration
The defensive plan to frustrate the high-powered BYU women’s soccer team seems to be getting around: Pack ten defenders into the defensive end.
It hasn’t helped that the Cougars have been prone to giving up early goals and have had to fight from behind. Jennifer Rockwood and her coaching staff had better figure out how to beat that look because everybody is going to be trying it to slow down BYU’s potent attack.
Highly entertained
BYU men’s basketball hosted some pretty important visitors this week, per Robby McCombs at Vanquish the Foe.
Malick Dialo, a four-star 6-foot-10 center from Wasatch Academy, spent a few days earlier this week on campus and three other key recruits — 6-4 combo guard Brooks Bahr from Texas, 6-8 forward Brody Kozlowski (Corner Canyon HS) and 6-8 forward Jaxon Johnson (Alta HS) took in BYU’s crazy victory against Cincinnati at LES on Friday.
What kind of impression did that game make? Do you think they want to be a part of that ROC lunacy?
Finally, there is this: “Go to bed and you’ll feel better in the morning” is the human version of “Did you turn the computer off and turn it back on again?”
That’s it for now. Treat your loved ones and neighbors well and enjoy your bye week.
