Johnson is BYU’s top cornerback and generally regarded to be one of the top players at his position nationally, making the prospect of presenting a defense without his services a daunting one for a Cougar defense that leaked all sorts of holes in the loss.

“We have to evaluate it. I don’t know exactly the injury, but they’re still looking at him right now,” said BYU coach Kalani Sitake. “So that that’s unfortunate, because he’s one of the best corners in the country, so we’ll have to see what that looks like. We had a couple guys go down, so this conference is tough, man. There’s a lot of great teams in this conference, and we’re going to have to test some of our depth and see if those guys can perform better than what we did today.”

While the loss of Johnson to injury didn’t impact BYU’s loss to UCF, it could very much prove debilitating moving forward depending on the severity.

Other injuries, primarily one incurred by right guard Trevin Ostler impacted the course of a rushing attack that was already ailing prior to Ostler leaving the game early in the second half. Ostler started the game in place of Kyle Sfarcioc, who was listed as out prior to the game, and after his injury coaches were made to rely on Stanford transfer and seldom-used Zac Yamauchi to pair with true freshman Bott Mulitalo on the right side of the line.

Sitake mentioned that they fully anticipate Sfarcioc to return to action next Saturday when the Cougars take on Arizona State at home. More clarity regarding all the team injuries could be revealed throughout the coming week as the team looks to rebound from Saturday’s 39-31 double overtime loss on the road.

A rough one to take

One of the key moments of Saturday’s game came during the first possession of the second overtime period when BYU forced UCF into a field goal situation, which was subsequently booted through by Knight kicker Will Stone. But a flag was thrown well after Stone’s foot made contact with the ball due to BYU linebacker Kendal Wall falling into Stone’s leg while engaged with a UCF blocker. The conduct was judged by officials to be enough to warrant a roughing-the-kicker penalty, which granted UCF a first down and a subsequent touchdown just four plays later.

“I didn’t get an explanation,” Sitake said of the consequential penalty. “From what I saw, I don’t think that’s a personal foul roughing the kicker. But, you know, we still didn’t score … The calls work out for us and sometimes they don’t, and that one didn’t.”

Indeed BYU’s attempt to match UCF’s touchdown failed when tight end Walker Lyons couldn’t haul in a low pass thrown to him in the corner of the endzone during a 4th-and-goal situation.

No excuses

BYU had to travel across country to take on a UCF team that was coming off a bye week which was utilized very well by Knight head coach Scott Frost, as mentioned several times by Sitake during postgame interviews. Compounding the issue could have been the fact that BYU made the trip when coming off of one of the biggest wins in program history, which could have at least contributed to a lack of preparation or proper mindset, although both players and coaches dismissed the suggestion.

“It’d be easy for me to just say there (was a) letdown, but we started fast and we were in it. We were in the game,” Sitake said. “You see the guys’ mentality — they were in it. I just don’t think I want to disrespect UCF by saying that this was a letdown from us. We played hard, they just played better and they bested us. So, I just can’t sit here and tell you like, oh yeah, there’s just a letdown and all that.”