But to keep rolling and avoid wiping out, the Cougars have to buck some troubling recent trends.

BYU has lost five straight Big 12 road games and been defeated by FBS opponents in 10 consecutive day games.

Its next opponent, Baylor, would love to extend those streaks and the Bears are good enough to do so.

“We are looking forward to this week going to Baylor and playing that game,” Cougar head coach Kalani Sitake said earlier this week. “We’ve been there before and it’s a tough environment to play in. Everything on the road nowadays is especially in this conference. They are coming off a heartbreaking loss. They will be ready to roll so we need to make sure we are ready to roll.”

The element that seems to get the most attention is how the Cougars have fared in day games compared to night games. The comparative success rates have inspired nicknames like “vampire Cougars” but the players scoff at the notion that they aren’t as good in day games.

“It’s definitely important to prepare for it,” BYU junior offensive lineman Weylin Lapuaho said. “I think it’s just kind of funny how people will try to frame it. To me, if you’re a football player, you’re a football player, whether that game is at 10 a.m. or if it’s at 8:30 p.m. You better be ready to play football whatever the time is. I don’t think it’s really going to affect us.”

Cougar junior defensive back Crew Wakley agrees, saying it’s not on the radar of the players as they get ready to play Baylor.

“We’re excited,” Wakely said. “11 a.m., 2 p.m., 8 p.m., we’re just going to play football. There are all these stats and all this and that, and whether there’s correlation, I don’t know. I know we played basically the same time last year against Oklahoma, and that game went well for the most part. I don’t think anybody on the team is worried about what time we’re playing, but we’re just excited to play ball. There haven’t been any concerns in the locker room or throughout the offices here about what time the game is at. We’re just excited.”

Sitake said that the goal has been to prepare his squad for tough conditions and then make slight scheduling changes as needed.

“We’re an afternoon practice team,” Sitake said. “We like that because we can get in the heat so it’s the hardest part of the day. We like to be outside when we practice. We will adjust a couple things, meeting times, things like that. We’ve been in this situation before we can adjust our schedule depending whatever the time is.”

Being on the road will present a tough challenge, as it always does in the Big 12. BYU knows the Bears will have great support from the Baylor faithful.

“I think it’s a hard place to play,” Cougar senior defensive lineman John Nelson said. “They bring a good crowd and they are a tough team to play at home.”

BYU also has to ensure that it doesn’t suffer a letdown performance after knocking of the then-No. 13-ranked Wildcats.

“Football is an interesting sport because you have a whole week in between games,” Nelson said. “That’s a whole week you could be humble or a whole week of being prideful, so we try to leave every game behind us. It is good to know we can play at that high of a level and helps us set new expectations for ourselves each week. Our win on Saturday was a memorable one and I hope Cougar nation loves it, but we owe it to ourselves to stay locked in and prepare for Baylor now.”

And then there are the Bears themselves, a team that is still figuring some things out four games into the season.

But BYU players and coaches know that Baylor is talented and dangerous.

“They have a lot of really good size up front, and their backers are solid players,” Lapuaho said of the Bear defense. “They’re well coached. It’s going to be a dogfight. They’re not the type to be slanting around. They’re going to line up saying, this is where we are, and this is where we’re going to be. And we’re going to take that challenge.”

The Cougar defense will be looking to keep Baylor from getting on track, but the Bears have plenty of playmakers who can make things happen according to BYU defensive ends coach Kelly Poppinga.

“I think that team is hungry and they are playing really well, especially the last two weeks,” Poppinga said. “Their quarterback (Sawyer Robertson) is playing better and got that team playing at a very high level. They’ve scored 31 points two weeks in a row. I think they are a different team with him. They throw the ball well and they run the ball well. There are a lot of issue and we as a defense are going to have to execute well.”

BYU at Baylor

TIME: 10 a.m. MT

TV:FS1

WHERE:McLane Stadium, Waco, Texas

THE WORD: This will be the fifth meeting between BYU and Baylor with the series currently tied at 2-2 … The two schools last met in Provo in 2022 with the Cougars winning 26-20 in 2OT. The Bears won the last meeting in Waco, defeating BYU 38-24 in 2021 … The Cougars were ranked for the first time this week, coming in at No. 22 in both the Associated Press and AFCA Coaches polls. BYU is 22-7 under head coach Kalani Sitake when playing as a ranked team. The appearance in the AP poll is the 280th overall by the Cougars in program history, which is tied for 35th among all teams.