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WACO, Texas — Five games after BYU's inaugural season in the Big 12 ended with a disappointing 5-7 record, nothing still comes easy for these Cougars.
Not even when things were.
Newly ranked as the No. 22 team by the Associated Press and AFCA Coaches Poll, the Cougars matched their win total from a year ago with a 34-28 win over Baylor — their first in Big 12 road play since joining the conference a year ago.
Things could have gone a different way, which may seem impossible after Jake Retzlaff led touchdown drives on his first four possessions, and the Cougars (5-0, 2-0 Big 12) led by as much as 28-7 in the second quarter.
But Retzlaff, who finished with 216 passing yards and two touchdowns and added another 53 rushing yards and a score on the ground, also threw a pair of interceptions that helped let the Bears right back in it.
As has been the case this year, BYU's defense continued to be the calling card, and helped the Cougars surpass their projected win total of 4.5 by most Las Vegas-area sportsbooks by the fifth week of the season.
Jay Hill's unit tied a season-high with three sacks, and interceptions by Blake Mangelson and Crew Wakley helped seal a third loss in the last four games for Baylor (2-3, 0-2 Big 12).
"It was a little dramatic at the end there," BYU coach Kalani Sitake said. "I would like to see us finish better, but you knew Baylor would respond."
Still, it's just the eighth time in program history that BYU has started 5-0, and the third time under Sitake. The former BYU fullback matched college football Hall of Fame coach LaVell Edwards — his college coach — in 5-0 starts in his best opening five-week salvo since doing the same thing in 2020 and 2021.
It did so with perhaps its best offensive performance of the year — in the first half, that is — led by Darius Lassiter's first 100-yard game since transferring from Eastern Michigan.
"I feel like I played decently," said Lassiter, who caught eight passes for a career-best 120 yards including a 44-yard touchdown during the initial 28-7 start. "I left a lot out there on the field, had two drops in the third. I was able to make up for it, but those things shouldn't happen. I pride myself in catching the ball any time it's in my area."
But a battered-and-bruised BYU squad was outscored 14-3 in the second half after Will Ferrin's career-long 54-yard field goal gave the Cougars a 31-14 halftime advantage.
"It just shows all the hard work that we put in from winter all the way up until now is paying off," Lassiter added. "We probably didn't see how it was going to end up, being 5-0 and things like that.
"But we trusted the process of our strength staff, nutritionists, everybody this whole winter and summer, and you can see everything has fallen in place like they said it would."
The adversity that struck on the field wasn't just managed by a Baylor team whose defensive front changed for the better under head coach and renewed defensive play caller Dave Aranda.
Quarterback Sawyer Robertson threw for 324 yards and three touchdowns with just one interception before Wakley's dramatic game-winning pick on the 48-yard line that erupted a good chunk of the announced crowd of 39,583 fans at McLane Stadium who happened to be wearing blue that day.
It wasn't just because of Jordan Cameron, who caught seven passes for 125 yards and two scores to lead the comeback effort.
Give all of those Bears credit — and then some. Like a wounded boxer strung up against the ropes, Baylor fought back against a BYU team that was wounded in its own right.
Down a pair of running backs in LJ Martin and Sione I. Moa, the Cougars saw starting center Connor Pay exit the game with an apparent ankle injury in the first half. Wide receiver Kody Epps joined him on injured reserve after the break with an undisclosed injury, and left guard Weylin Lapuaho nearly did as well before returning in the second half.
Choe Bryant-Strother, Evan Johnson, Harrison Taggart and Isaiah Glasker, among others, also missed time with injury concerns as the Cougars pivot to a much-needed recovery week.
The triage list of injuries had few answers in the moment, including for Pay's parents who tried to find their son in the locker room after the game while being escorted by deputy athletic director Brian Santiago from the stands.
Sitake said Pay's injury would be re-evaluated over the weekend, and he'll know more of it by Monday before BYU's (much-needed) bye week.
In the meantime, backup center Sonny Makasini and occasionally converted center Bruce Mitchell led a group of reinforcements trying to fill in the gaps, and move forward where they could.
"I'm proud of the guys who stepped in," Sitake said. "This is a close team; even the guys that weren't able to play and were hurt, they were in it on the sideline."
