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PROVO — First, the good news for BYU fans.
No. 12-ranked BYU women’s volleyball topped No. 2 Stanford on the road Saturday, 3-1 — the Cougars’ second win over a top-25 opponent of the week.
The football team, however? That was a different story.
In the end, deja vu was apropos for the Cougars’ matchup against No. 22 Washington. A year after a humbling 35-7 loss in Seattle, BYU returned the game with a 45-19 defeat to the 22nd-ranked Huskies in front of an announced crowd of 62,117 fans Saturday afternoon at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
Here are three thoughts from the Huskies’ thoroughly dominant win over BYU.
Some good, but not good enough
Sure, there were good moments for the Cougars. Emmanuel Esukpa scored his first touchdown in Provo, finishing with 51 yards on nine carries. Isaiah Kaufusi had a sack, and Max Tooley had his first career interception — though he came up 7 yards shy of the goal line, dropping the ball before Zach Wilson hit Matt Bushman with a touchdown strike. Payton Wilgar (10 tackles) and Dayan Ghanwoloku (seven tackles) combined to slow Washington’s hubris by halting a fake field goal in the first half.
But those moments were few, and is often the case in a blowout, far in between one another. Even Bushman’s touchdown grab was tipped as it soared through the traffic of two Washington defenders on the final play of the third quarter.
But Washington was simply better. The Huskies are ranked No. 22 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 and beat up on BYU 35-7 a year ago in Seattle. After graduating quarterback Jake Browning from that squad, coach Chris Peterson simply substituted Georgia transfer Jacob Eason at quarterback — and the former Bulldog completed 24-of-28 passes for 290 yards and three touchdowns, connecting his first 12 pass attempts.
BYU had to play as close to a perfect game as possible to have any chance of upsetting Washington. And they didn’t.
“They were a really good team, but I think our mistakes made them look a lot better,” said Bushman, who caught six passes for 89 yards and a touchdown. “They’re returning Pac-12 champs, and they are going to be a really good team this season. But our mistakes made them look like world-beaters.
“I think if we eliminate those dumb mistakes, fix that, then we would’ve been in the game. At least, be a lot closer.”
Bad first quarter gets worse
The good news: Jake Oldroyd’s 43-yard field goal on the Cougars’ opening drive of the first quarter snapped Washington’s first-quarter shutout streak three games into the season.
The bad news? It was the only good thing to come from the Cougars’ opening frame.
Washington out-gained the Cougars 130 yards to 66, and went 2-for-2 in the red zone — with a defensive scoring play via Brandon Wellington’s 69-yard fumble recovery with 2:17 left in the quarter. All BYU did was run for 13 yards, throw for 53 more, and commit five penalties for 50 yards — including a pair of costly face mask mistakes that led to Eason’s second touchdown strike of the game.
“I thought the guys played hard; the effort was there,” BYU coach Kalani Sitake said. “But the hard part was they were pounding us, getting some chunk yardage and pounding us defensively.
“Their offense was able to do a lot of things, and we couldn’t disrupt the timing with Eason. For the most part, we didn’t play assignment sound at the beginning of the game, and things just built until it was too much to overcome. Huge credit to Washington, but it didn’t help that we made some mistakes, too.”
Offense, defense and special teams woes
There weren’t a whole lot of positive superlatives to go around in the Cougars’ blowout loss.
Even Oldroyd — a shiner on special teams who booted a career-long 54-yard field goal — had his poor moment when he missed a point-after touchdown.
The Cougars’ offense produced just 13 rushing yards in the first quarter — the defense couldn’t hold up against Eason and an onslaught of Washington receivers — and special teams blew a routine punt coverage in the third quarter to allow Aaron Fuller to score on an 88-yard return.
The best-case scenario was a forgettable afternoon for BYU — and it got worse after a 21-3 first quarter.
“We were hoping that we could come in and show a different type of game,” Sitake said. “But way too many mistakes — in all three phases — for us to really have a chance against a great team like that.
“As much as we tried to gain momentum, it seemed like Washington had an answer.”
