The offense was bogged down in some degree of inefficiency while the defense was typically doing everything necessary to keep a dangerous Pirate offense at bay, setting up hopeful scoring responses from the offense or otherwise.

Enter Evan Johnson.

With just under a minute left in the second half the Cougar junior cornerback played a little possum, baiting a quick throw to the flat that appeared to be open to Pirate quarterback Katin Houser. Johnson then jumped all over the attempt, using his elite athleticism and savvy to get off to a healthy break, pick the ball out of the air with relative easy and then gallop into the end zone from just over five yards out to give his team a 13-3 lead at the break.

The play changed the course of the entire game.

From there the Cougar offense finally found some rhythm to somewhat match the exemplary play the BYU defense and special teams showed throughout as BYU built a big lead and then coasted to a big 34-13 win.

“It was just something we’ve seen on film the whole week,” Johnson said of his game-changing pick-6. “Coach gave me a good call to get the opportunity to go jump the route. The quarterback gave me a three-step (drop) and that was my opportunity to go make a play on the ball.”

Johnson didn’t let the opportunity pass, much as he did just a few minutes prior, making another interception as East Carolina was threatening to score and take the lead operating well within the scoring redzone. While praising Johnson’s play, Cougar Head Coach Kalani Sitake quipped that he was somewhat disappointed with the fact only two interceptions were made.

“He should have had more. Coach (Jay) Hill thinks he should have had two more,” Sitake said. “I just love the way he plays and he’s developed so nicely…So I’m really proud of him and the way he played this game.”

Indeed Saturday’s game presented the first real challenge to the Cougar secondary, following games versus the rather subpar passing arsenals offered by both Portland State and Stanford. The Pirates entered the game averaging just over 350 yards passing per game, and while Houser and company did provide 285 yards passing, the Cougar secondary, led by Johnson, did well in limiting big play opportunities while proving to be at their best time any time the Pirates sniffed a scoring opportunity.

As mentioned, the Cougar offense eventually woke up and followed the defense’s lead.

Freshman quarterback Bear Bachmeier began the game looking confused and out-of-synch before settling in to provide his best stats of the season, going 18-25 through the air for 246 yards a touchdown, and perhaps most importantly, contributing no interceptions for a third straight game.

“In the first half you saw him miss some throws. I know he wishes he had those back,” Sitake said. “But given the environment and hostility here, I think it was a good step for him in the right direction and then we saw him play much better in the second half…So hopefully he’s turned a corner and we can count on him being a veteran now. With three games under his belt now he’s no longer a true freshman.”

Bachmeier’s second half play was highlighted with a 20-yard touchdown toss to tight end Carsen Ryan with 6:33 left in the third quarter to give BYU a 20-3 lead before adding a 16-yard run into the endzone at the start of the fourth quarter to extend the lead to 27-6.

“It’s easy to settle in knowing that the support around me is great,” Bachmeier said. “I think it just came down to execution. We weren’t executing in the first half. There’s some throws that we want back. There’s some plays that we want back, but I think when we got into the redzone, we scored. We just executed.”

Indeed Saturday saw the offense improve well over the redzone issues incurred in a 27-6 win over Stanford two weeks ago, which saw the offense settle for perhaps too many field goals.

Helping out the cause, as he often does, was running back LJ Martin, who rushed for 101 yards on just 14 carries while topping off the game in style with a 41-yard touchdown gallop to give the Cougars the final 34-13 scoring margin.

As for the what ultimately got things going in the right direction, however, it was again the Cougar defense, led by some outstanding play from linebackers Isaiah Glasker and perhaps particularly Jack Kelly, coupled with stout line play and a secondary passing its first real test of the season with honors. Contributing heavily to the standout play from the secondary was safety Raider Damuni, who led the team with eight tackles while providing solid coverage throughout.

But as for team MVP honors, few would argue that award goes to Johnson, who turned things around in a split instance with his pick-6.

“I feel that any time you can come into an opponent’s stadium and get a win, you know your defense played good,” Johnson said. “There’s a lot of things we can clean up to become even a better defense, but I think as a defense tonight we collectively handled things good and we had a lot of good plays.”

With the win BYU improves to 3-0 on the season and will travel to take on Colorado next week for its Big 12 Conference opener.