1 / 3

BYU safety Faletau Satuala blocks a FG during his team's double overtime loss to UCF on Saturday. October 24, 2026

Courtesy BYU Photo

2 / 3

From left, BYU's Robert Wright III, Collin Chandler and Bruce Branch III talk strategy against UNLV in a men's college basketball exhibition game at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026.

3 / 3

Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald

❮ ❯

Here’s what’s going on inside Darnell’s head.

Good morning (or afternoon) to a fan base suffering from the worst case of whiplash I’ve ever seen.

Going from beating Notre Dame to losing to UCF has Cougar Nation questioning their sanity. Who were those guys in Orlando in BYU blue and how did they get ahold of the Cougars uniforms?

It wasn’t just one thing that resulted in a 39-31 double overtime loss at the Bounce House. Start with a well rested and obviously hungry UCF team that just seemed fresher and more focused than BYU. Quarterback Keyone Jenkins toyed with the Cougar defense all afternoon and had a career game. BYU made plenty of assignment mistakes, many more than they made the previous week against Notre Dame. The Golden Knights team speed on both side of the ball was clearly a big advantage.

The game plan seemed to be beyond the player’s ability to execute, and that’s disappointing with what was at stake.

Sure, some questionable calls went against BYU. There were things the Cougars could control and they didn’t.

Now it’s time for Perfectly Rational Overreactions (PROs).

PRO No. 1: BYU didn’t stay “humble and hungry” this week.

I’m sure some of the players had put the Notre Dame win behind them but the Cougar team that played on Saturday wasn’t even remotely as focused as it was last week. UCF didn’t play a perfect game either, but played with passion and better execution just about everywhere. BYU missed so many tackles it was comical and made Jenkins look like a Heisman Trophy candidate. When you have a win as big as the Cougars had against the Irish last week, it takes a while to come down. Maybe BYU got an overinflated ego about how good they were. UCF played better for longer and deserved the win. The Cougars were just way too inconsistent on both sides of the ball.

PRO No. 2: The refs cost BYU the game.

They had an interesting game, didn’t they? The roughing-the-kicker penalty was especially puzzling. But as we hear all the time, you can only control what you can control. You can’t control the officials, but you can control picking up a ridiculous personal foul (looking at you, Keanu  Tanuvasa). For a senior leader and a captain to lose his mind like that is just crazy.

You can control if you break down and make a proper tackle, or catch a tough ball. BYU needed someone to step up and make big plays on both sides of the ball and they consistently came up one step short. The Cougars didn’t make nearly as many plays as it needed to win the game.

PRO No. 3: The BYU defense is wrecked.

We saw a very dominant defense through the first six weeks of the season, but UCF shredded the Cougars for 463 yards and 39 points (24 in regulation). I wouldn’t have thought that was possible heading into this game. UCF receivers ran away from BYU defenders all game long (too much man-to-man?) and Jenkins extended a dozen plays by simply avoiding the Cougars’ poor tackling. The past two weeks BYU has gotten to the quarterback only to not be able to finish. That’s very concerning. It looks like Evan Johnson could miss significant time with an ankle injury as well and that’s big. Defensive coordinator Kelly Poppinga has a lot of work to do this week.

And finally, PRO No. 4: The season is lost.

Despite BYU’s awful effort and execution, it still had a chance to win the game. Partly because the defense came up with a fourth down stop and partly because Scott Frost decided he hates field goals that would have won him the game … twice.

How will BYU recover from the loss? They have a home game with Arizona State next week, then Utah in Salt Lake City. The Utes are flying high and undefeated after taking care of Houston at home.

The Cincinnati game to end the regular season takes on a lot more importance since the Bearcats knocked off Texas Tech from the ranks of the unbeaten on Saturday.

If there is a four or five-way tie for first (that’s possible) and the Cougars have just one loss, it would be better if they didn’t play in the Big 12 Championship Game. That’s crazy, but that’s college football. The margin of error just got a lot smaller.

Who Carried the Boats and the Logs?

Hard to find anybody that fits this award, truthfully. As a team, BYU’s effort and execution was wildly inconsistent. Give UCF some credit for that because their team speed ate up the Cougars all night long. For sure nobody on defense, where missed tackles were plentiful. I guess maybe wide receiver Kyler Kasper, who caught six passes for 129 yards and a touchdown.

They did what?

Statistics can sometimes be misleading or even downright incorrect.

But get a load of this.

On Oct. 3, Orem held off Lone Peak 3-2 in a girls volleyball match. On MaxPreps, Knights senior Ava Burgess, who is headed to Stanford, was credited with 40 kills on 76 swings with nine errors, a hitting percentage of .408.

Tigers freshman Meilani Akana, who played this summer for the Brazil U19 national team, finished with 35 kills on 68 swings with seven errors, a hitting percentage of .412.

Both will be in action this week at the state volleyball tournament, which is held at Utah Valley’s UCCU Center.

The Burgess family (yes, BYU assistant coach Chris Burgess is the father) had a busy weekend. KJ plays for No. 11 BYU women’s volleyball and younger sister Zoey plays for No. 8 Arizona State. The two teams clashed at the Smith Fieldhouse on Saturday night. Chris Burgess helped coach the Cougar men’s basketball team to an exhibition win in Las Vegas and then hustled back to Provo to watch his daughters play against each other. BYU won the match 3-1 to move to 17-1 this season. During one sequence, Zoey powered a swing off her sister’s head and checked to make sure KJ was OK.

What I saw

A couple of observations from the BYU men’s basketball exhibition win at UNLV.

• Where is Tyler Betsey? He was talked up as someone who had shone during preseason workouts but he’s been invisible in the first two games as a starter.

• For BYU to make strides defensively, they have to fix two main deficiencies: Guarding the other team’s best player and getting out on 3-pointers. Sebastian Mack had his way with the Cougars and scored 26 points by just putting his head down and going to the basket. The Rebels shot 6 of 18 (33%) from three but was close to 50% most of the game.

• BYU’s top four players (Collin Chandler, Robert Wright III, Jaxon Kohler and freshman Bruce Branch III) are as good as you’ll find in the country. How Kevin Young handles the rest of his rotation will bear watching during the non-conference slate.

Get off my lawn

Any fan base who doesn’t give credit to the opponent is delusional. Sure, the Cougars could have played better on Saturday but there’s a reason for that: UCF played harder for longer and deserved to win the game. Where that effort came from after a 3-3 start to the season is a mystery, but that’s what happened. Notre Dame fans seemed especially hesitant to credit BYU for its win last week.

That’s all for now, but for this:

The other day I was at the drive-through at an eating establishment (I won’t tell you which one because you will be judgy) and I thought the young girl who handed me my food said, “Have a good month.”

When I commented on it, she said, “No, I said, have a good one.”

I usually get “Have a good day.” I’ll take “have a good month.”

Breathe in, breathe out. You’re going to have a good week and probably a good month.