Keelan Marion's rare kick return TD lifts BYU by Wyoming for 3-0 start

LARAMIE, Wyo. — BYU needed a spark after slugging out a 17-7 halftime lead over former conference rival Wyoming.

Keelan Marion was happy to provide it.

The redshirt junior wide receiver took the opening kickoff of the second half 100 yards for a touchdown to help propel the Cougars to a 34-14 win over their former Mountain West rivals and hand the Cowboys a third consecutive loss to start the year Saturday at War Memorial Stadium.

Marion's kick return was the first taken to the house by a BYU player since Adam Hine in 2014 against Virginia.

But Marion, a former UConn transfer, was eager to make up for what he thought was a previous mistake on a prior kick return — when he didn't hit a hole the way special teams coordinator Kelly Poppinga expected.

He more than made up for it coming out of the locker room, springing through the middle of the field, careening off a block by backup tight end Ray Paulo, and outlasting the kicker and the rest of the Cowboys' field to the end zone for the Cougars' first kick return touchdown on the road since Oct. 17, 1998, against Hawaii.

"I think it gave us a different type of juice," Marion said. "Even the defense came up to me and hyped me up."

The same defense that held Wyoming (0-3) to just over 200 yards of offense, including 77 on the ground, was led by four tackles for loss by Harrison Taggart, Isaiah Glasker, Tyler Batty and a sack by Jack Kelly was "hyped" by the performance.

After a strong first half and another defensive standout performance, the Cougars (3-0) had an offense and scoring output that began to match in scoring 17 unanswered points from the halftime locker room.

"That was big time," BYU coach Kalani Sitake said. "You could sense if we could get another score, it would make things more difficult. But credit to the environment here; Wyoming fans were just willing their team to go."

Jake Retzlaff completed 22-of-36 passes for 291 yards, three touchdowns and an interception, and ran for a team-high 62 yards on six scrambles for the Cougars, who improved to 3-0 for the second straight season.

Chase Roberts caught six passes for 129 yards; and Keanu Hill, Darius Lassiter and Kody Epps each caught a touchdown from Retzlaff.

But that finish wasn't what the former California junior college standout projected from the start, when Wyoming's Wrook Brown snagged an interception near the goal line on BYU's first offensive series.

Fresh off a dominant defensive performance against SMU, the BYU defense held the Cowboys to 40 yards of offense in the fourth quarter.

Retzlaff found Hill for his first touchdown of the season midway through the quarter, a 20-yard checkdown pass to the open tight end who sprinted untouched into the end zone for a 7-0 advantage.

Epps doubled the advantage on the Cougars' first drive of the second quarter, finding the corner pylon on a 3-yard touchdown after a nine-play, 74-yard drive with 9:12 left in the half.

It was Epps' first touchdown since Oct. 15, 2022, at home against Arkansas — a game the Cougars returned last year with a trip to Fayetteville.

Evan Svoboda pulled one back for the Cowboys, completing 5-of-6 passes during an 11-play, 75-yard drive that included a 24-yarder to Clay Nanke before diving in for six from 2 yards out with 5:11 remaining.

Will Ferrin added a 49-yard field goal with 45 seconds left to lift BYU to a 17-0 halftime advantage after out-gaining the Cowboys 251-102 in the first half.

The visiting Cougars went 0-for-5 on third downs and trailed in the turnover margin 1-0 at the break.

But the visitors had a 10-point lead, and Marion stretched it to 24-7 with what was officially a 100-yard kickoff return that started close to three yards into his end zone.

"That's BYU football; we are aggressive, and we don't care," said BYU cornerback Evan Johnson, who added an interception. "We just told Keelan, we got it; just trust it. There was a hole, we saw it on the last play. They were a little over-confident against us (on kick return).

"But we're resilient and tough."

Marion converted on third-and-4 on the next drive with an 11-yard catch to snap a streak of 16 consecutive third-down conversion whiffs that set up Ferrin's 37-yard field goal.

Retzlaff made it 34-7 on his third touchdown toss of the night, a 20-yard bullet over the middle that Lassiter stretched across the goal line and the Cougars opened the fourth quarter with Johnson's first career interception to cruise to the finish.

Svoboda completed 14-of-32 passes for 140 yards and an interception, and ran for 32 yards and two scores for the Cowboys. Tyler King caught three passes for 52 yards for Wyoming.

The win wraps up nonconference play for BYU, which opens Big 12 play next Saturday against No. 14 Kansas State (8:30 p.m. MDT, ESPN).

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