Is BYU a Conference Contender? Seven Takeaways From BYU's Win Over Baylor

Joe Wheat | Sep 30, 2024

BYU football celebrates a win over Baylor / BYU Photo

BYU pulled off its first road win as a member of the Big 12 in a 34-28 win over Baylor. The win was probably more stress inducing than it needed to be, but still an excellent win all the same. We are now over 40% through their regular season slate and heading into the bye week with a pretty good understanding of what BYU is or isn’t this season. Here are a few additional things I took away from the Cougars' fifth-straight win of 2024.

1. That was a complete team win

There will be some that want to assign the victory to a certain side of the ball. “The defense bailed out the offense on Saturday” they might say. I don’t think that’s true. BYU didn’t play a perfect game in every phase, but every phase played well enough to win. BYU’s offense scored points on 6 of their first 7 drives. That is good enough to win. The defense held Baylor’s offense to one touchdown on their final 6 drives. That is good enough to win. On special teams, Will Ferrin drilled 2 field goals and BYU successfully executed a fake punt. Certainly, mistakes were made, but BYU earned a road win over a desperate (and talented) opponent that was fighting for their season. That is an excellent day.

2. BYU will struggle to keep leads without a consistent run game

The run game is getting better, but it’s still not consistent enough for BYU to close out games on offense when the game plan becomes draining clock. There were certainly some questionable play calls, chief of which was choosing to throw on 3rd and 2, which resulted in an interception. Still, BYU needs to find a running back that can put a game on ice when everyone in the stadium knows BYU is going to run the football.

3. Just like we all expected, BYU’s passing game in its totality is one of the best in the conference

BYU QB Jake Retzlaff drops back against Kansas State / BYU Photo

BYU has faced 3 elite defensive lines over 3 of the last 4 weeks and have allowed 13 total hurries and just 3 sacks. That has been the start of Jake Retzlaff’s marked improvement over last season, who has an adjusted completion percentage of 72.7% from a clean pocket with 10 TD’s and 3 INT’s (should be 11 but for some reason Retzlaff’s TD pass to Roberts was ruled a lateral).

Jake Retzlaff has been BYU’s offense this season. Through 5 games, Retzlaff has accounted for 71% of BYU’s total offensive yards and touchdowns this season. He has been excellent this season, hard stop, especially given where he was last season. Retzlaff currently ranks 6th in the Big 12 in passing yards, 6th in passing touchdowns, and 4th in yards per attempt. If BYU can develop a more consistent running back centric run game like they did last season, BYU’s best offensive football is likely still ahead of them.

4. BYU’s secondary showed some weakness

BYU safety Crew Wakley seals the game with an interception against Baylor / BYU Photo

BYU’s secondary had an uncharacteristically bad day. It wasn’t the worst day. They allowed just 56% completion percentage on 48 total pass attempts and had the game-sealing interception, but there were large stretches of that game where they hunted BYU’s corners and were successful in doing so, especially on 3rd and 4th down. Two of Baylor's four touchdown drives featured two 3rd-and-12+ conversions and two 4th-down conversions through the air. Preventing one or two of those conversions would have reduced a significant amount of stress. Some of that is on the BYU blitz not getting home, but BYU’s back-end defense has to be better for BYU to contain Noah Fifita and Arizona.  

5. The bye week came at a perfect time

Given the number of injuries that piled up in this game, coming out with a win was extremely impressive. At one point, BYU was down their top 2 running backs, 2 starting OL, a starting corner and two of their top four leading tacklers. Still, BYU found a way. BYU’s bye week could not have come at a better time, as it felt like BYU was losing someone every other snap at points. Sources to BYU On SI indicate that Harrison Taggart, Isaiah Glasker and Weylin Lapuaho are not expected to miss time, while Connor Pay was carted off the field with a foot injury that will likely keep him sidelined for the next few weeks. In the run game, all of BYU’s running backs are expected to be available following the bye week which is excellent news. Hopefully this next week can be a reset where players can get physically and emotionally healthy ahead of a massive 3-game stretch that will determine BYU’s Big 12 title contention.

6. This is a very good BYU football team

BYU head coach Kalani Sitake against Baylor / BYU Photo

After the game, BYU reached 5-0 with a top 20 ranking, a top 20 win, and two solid P4 road wins, but one question was on my mind: Is BYU good? By every objective metric, the answer is yes. Predictive metrics like SP+, FPI, and KFord have BYU rated 42nd, 34th, and 29th nationally and are climbing every week. The resume versions of those same metrics have BYU ranked 10th, 2nd and 3rd respectively. BYU is certainly not a top-5 team, but the metrics support that there are (conservatively) 10 teams nationally that have had as good of a start to their season as BYU.

Earning 5-0 is hard. Only good BYU teams start 5-0. Only 8 teams in BYU history have done it in their 100-year history. All 7 previous 5-0 BYU teams won 10 games. Only 2 of those 5-0 starts featured 3 wins over P4 teams (2021). An underrated note is the 3 of the 8 5-0 starts happened in the last 5 years under Kalani Sitake. No other BYU coach in history has orchestrated 3 5-0 starts in a 5-year span.

Yes, BYU nearly blew a first half 3-touchdown lead. So did Alabama. Only good teams find a way to win when the momentum shifts in favor of a surging opponents. In addition, only good teams build 3-touchdown leads in the first place. If the standard for “good” is dominating for 60 minutes every single week, there are no good college football teams. Every team struggles at some point, but BYU’s worst days have still resulted in wins.

Yes, BYU started 5-2 last season and collapsed, but that was a completely different team. In their 5-2 start, BYU had 4 games with a negative post-win expectancy (i.e. if the same game was played again the exact same way, BYU would be expected to lose 4 of those 7 games). This season, BYU’s post win expectancies have been 100%, 91%, 100%, 92%, 77%. Translation: This is an objectively better team than they were a season ago and a legitimate conference contender.

7. Why not BYU?

BYU players celebrate with the ROC after win over no. 13 Kansas State / BYU Photo

I wanted to see how BYU would respond against Baylor before I took them seriously as a conference contender. I am holding myself to that this week. BYU is one of 2 teams with a 2-0 BIG-12 record and have held a three-touchdown lead in 4 of their 5 games. This BYU team appears to be for real and you would be hard pressed to find a Big 12 power ranking this morning that doesn’t have BYU ranked in the top four. ESPN’s FPI gives BYU the third-best odds to win the Big 12, while 247sports and ESPN have BYU as their pick to represent the Big 12 in the CFP. That feels crazy. Is it legit? Should you buy the hype?

Why not? I know that feels crazy to say, but which teams would you definitively put over BYU at this point? Iowa State looks very good, but BYU doesn’t play them. Kansas State won their defacto Big 12 elimination game over Oklahoma State, but BYU already beat them by 29. Utah was the class of the conference, but just lost by two touchdowns to Arizona. UCF got crushed at home by Colorado. Looking at the remainder of BYU’s schedule, every game is winnable. Every game could be losable as well but that’s the nature of the Big 12. The fact remains that BYU has earned the right to be considered a Big 12 title contender. The fact that BYU is in that conversation at any point in their second season in the conference is, frankly, a sign of divine intervention. Winning the conference should in no way be the reset expectation of a successful season, but there is hope for that, and that is really, really, fun.