Especially for the defense.

“It gets about as raw as it can get,” Cougar safety Crew Wakley said. “Coach (Jay) Hill keeps it pretty straight forward with us. So you know who played good and who played bad. We all see the game grades so it’s transparent.”

Wakley said every play is graded and those numbers are passed on to the players.

“You either got a plus or a minus on that play,” he explained. “Plus is good, minus is bad and some minuses are worse than others. But it’s no secret who play good and who didn’t.”

On the plus side, the Cougars had a pair of interceptions to set up two BYU touchdowns. On the minus side, the defense forced just one punt on the first nine Cowboys drives and allowed a 17-play drive in the fourth quarter where OSU converted three third downs and two fourth downs to take the lead with 1:13 to play.

The offense bailed the defense out with a clutch drive but there was still plenty of corrections taking place as the coaches went through the game film with the defensive players.

“You’ve got one of two ways to take it, right?” Wakley said. “If you’re a good player, you take that. You want your coach to coach that way, because you want to get better at the end of the day, even if you win the game. Last week, we obviously didn’t play as well on defense, but even if you have a great performance, you want to know the plays you didn’t do as well, because you want to do those better next week.

“If you’re a good player you appreciate it. Now, if you’re someone who doesn’t really want to be great, doesn’t want to get better, then then you’re trying to hide from the call outs in the film and whatnot. But if you’re a man and you really want to develop, you take it on the chin. And you know that it’s not coming from a place of malice or bad intent, but it’s just like your coach wants you to be better. And that’s the standard around here.”

Hill said his defensive group was “outstanding” in practice on Tuesday.

“I don’t want to call it was a wake-up call, but I think when everybody starts talking about how great you’re playing, how good you’re doing, all it takes is the two big runs in the first half (vs. Oklahoma State) before you’re questioning what the heck we’re doing,” Hill said. “And you know, except for two big runs in the last drive, there’s a lot of good football that was played, but that puts a little bit of a bitter taste in you.”

The Cougar players and coaches get an extra day this week to prepare for UCF.

How much can one extra day of preparation help?

Well, that helps, for sure,” Hill said. “Last week we were coming off a short week and they (Oklahoma State) was coming off a bye. I don’t want to say that’s an advantage, but that’s a big deal in college football. So this week, the extra day of preparation and rest can be big, getting your bodies healthy. I thought today we look fast and fluid, maybe as good as we looked in a couple of weeks. So I thought that was a huge deal, having the extra day.”

The coaches spent Saturday not only watching UCF’s 38-35 loss to No. 10 Iowa State but breaking down multiple Golden Knight games.

“In this situation, it gave me an opportunity to sit down and watch a lot of games on UCF on Saturday and just get that jump start that you normally don’t get when you’re playing like Saturday night or traveling back on a Saturday,” Hill said. “That was a big deal for us.”

Martin earns national honor

For the second week in a row, BYU running back LJ Martin has been named an Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award National Player of the Week honorable mention.

In BYU’s 38-35 win over Oklahoma State on Friday, Martin led the then No. 13 ranked Cougars in rushing with 20 carries for 120 yards and two touchdowns. Early in the season Martin missed three game due to injury but has rolled up a combined 215 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns versus Arizona and OSU since returning to action.

For the season, Martin has 256 yards on 49 rushes, good for 5.2 yards per carry. He also has four receptions for 53 yards and a total of six touchdowns.

Martin, a product of Canutillo High School in El Paso, Texas, was named to the 2024 Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award Watch List by the Tyler Chamber of Commerce prior to the 2024 season. The award recognizes the top offensive player in college football who graduated from a Texas high school or is currently playing at a Texas FBS Division I school. In addition, Martin was named a preseason candidate for the prestigious Doak Walker Award and was also selected to the Athlon Sports Preseason All-Big 12 Third Team.