67. 12/21/18 - Potato Bowl: BYU - 49, Western Michigan - 18

             The BYU Cougars (6-6) had a roller-coaster season, highlighted with a huge win at #6 Wisconsin, and disgraced by a loss to relatively unknown Northern Illinois. Senior QB Tanner Mangum was replaced mid-season by freshman QB Zach Wilson to mixed results. For an encore, the Cougars were invited to the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (formerly known as the Humanitarian Bowl) to face Western Michigan (7-5). Although the Cougars and Broncos had faced off five times previously, their last matchup was back in 1970. After having their streak of 13 straight bowl games snapped in 2017, the Cougars were expecting to start their new streak with a win. In fact, head coach Kalani Sitake stated that he expected freshman QB Zach Wilson to “play perfectly” in his first bowl game. How would the young QB respond to such high expectations?

Western Michigan started the game with a controlled drive, gaining 61 yards in 14 plays, and burning 7:36 off the game clock. On fourth-and-2 at the BYU 21, the Broncos went for it, but the Cougar D held Jamauri Bogan to one yard. Although BYU had to punt on its initial drive, a lousy Bronco punt gave them the ball back at the Bronco 27. On second-and-9, Wilson zipped a 26-yard TD pass to Dylan Collie, running a slant pattern toward the middle of the end zone, for the first score of the day.

The second quarter belonged to Western Michigan. The Broncos recovered a Cougar fumble at the BYU 40. On fourth-and-3, the Broncos went back to Jamauri Bogan, who broke free for a 33-yard TD rush, tying the game at 7-up. Their next drive took them to the Cougar 20. On fourth-and-10, with 0:24 remaining, they let K Gavin Peddie boot a 37-yard FG, giving the Broncos a 10-7 halftime lead.

The Cougars came back with a vengeance in the second half. Their first drive went 69 yards, including a 48-yard reception by Neil Pau’u, and culminating with an 8-yard TD pass to Collie in the left side of the end zone. On their next drive, Riley Burt took the handoff, cut hard to the right and sprinted up the middle, blasting through a Bronco defender for a 37-yard TD rush. *On their next possession, the Cougars were facing a second-and-17 situation after yet another Bronco sack. The unflappable Wilson targeted Aleva Hifo, who was racing down the left sideline with a Bronco defender glued to his side. Hifo responded with a one-armed grab, spinning away from the defender, then juking passed him for a 70-yard TD catch-and-run (#75). After forcing punts on the Broncos’ first two possessions of the half, the Cougar D made an even bigger statement when Austin Lee intercepted a pass and ran it back 26 yards to the Bronco 32. A few plays later, Austin Kafentzis (a former RB, converted to safety) took the snap and pitched the ball to Davan Ghanwoloku, who hurtled himself into the end zone from a yard out to give the Cougars a commanding 35-10 lead.

Zach Wilson
2018 Potato Bowl
Courtesy of BYU Photo

The Cougars kept the pressure on in the fourth. Dax Milne snagged a pass from Wilson in the back of the end zone for a 5-yard TD reception - the first of his career. With a 32-point lead, the Cougars sent in some of their backups to play. The Broncos finally scored again, on a one-yard rush, netting 8 points with a two-point conversion. However, the BYU faithful were treated to an appearance by senior QB Tanner Mangum, who was playing in his final game as a Cougar. Mangum, who had started the season as the Cougars’ starting QB, came in to finish it, leading a 75-yard drive, including a 41-yard pass to Collie, to set up a 1-yard TD run by Bray El-Bakri. After six straight TD drives to start the second half, the Cougars used their seventh possession to run out the clock, and walk off the field with a 49-18 bowl game win.

Sione Takitaki
Courtesy of BYU Photo

Zach Wilson must have taken Sitake’s challenge to “play perfectly” to heart. The young QB completed 18-of-18 passes for 317 yards and four TDs. The performance not only earned him the MVP award, he also broke a couple of records: most consecutive completions in a game (BYU), and most completions by a QB without an incomplete pass in a bowl game (NCAA). On the defensive end, senior Sione Takitaki took care of business with a career-best 19 tackles.

 Game highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t-1bzqAmPo

*BYU Tv's Top 100 plays in BYU Football TV history (updated 12/12/20 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYzgPw-bQ_c)

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cougar Centennial preview

 This blog is dedicated to highlighting the 100 greatest games in BYU Cougar football history. I've been a BYU fan since I was a little kid, and attended the university from 1992-1996. When I realized that 2022 was the 100th anniversary of BYU's first official football game, I decided to compile a list of the 100 greatest games in the program's history (from 1922-2021) and do a write-up for each of those games. I did something similar for the 50th anniversary of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and figured I'd share my efforts with other BYU fans out there. Throughout the blog, I will be referring to Top 25 (or Top 20 prior to the expansion of the polls) rankings of either BYU or the teams they played. I realize that there are a couple of major polls, and even a few less famous ones, but for consistency sake I've decided to use the AP poll as the official ranking (even though BYU tends to be appreciated more by the coaches' poll). Also, many posts refer to the...
Read more

#98 - 11/1/80 – Most points in a game: #17 BYU – 83, UTEP - 7

Image
Junior QB Jim McMahon didn’t like to share the limelight with anyone. Yet that is exactly what he’d had to do in Provo. When Jim arrived in 1977, he found himself the backup to Marc Wilson, who enjoyed a spectacular sophomore season. The next year, the two QBs shared time behind center. That didn’t work out so well, so McMahon redshirted in 1979 - Wilson’s senior season. The result was the first undefeated regular season in team history. Now, it was Jim’s turn, and he wanted to break every single one of Wilson’s records, as well as set a bunch of new ones. Unfortunately, the Cougars started the 1980 season with a surprise loss to lightly regarded New Mexico. The loss served as a wake-up call to BYU, who were universally picked to repeat as WAC champions. The Cougars rolled out six straight victories, including a 28-3 win over Wisconsin on Sept. 20. These were convincing wins - with a minimum margin of victory of 16+ points. However, the Cougs didn’t break into the Top 20 until Oct. 18,...
Read more

#100 12/28/74 – BYU's first Bowl game: Oklahoma St. - 16, #17 BYU – 6

Image
               When the BYU Cougars (7-3-1) started the 1974 season with a 0-3-1 record, nobody would have guessed that they’d come back and win the WAC. However, since their 3 losses were against non-conference schools, they successfully won the conference title with a 6-0-1 record by knocking off two ranked teams (Arizona & Arizona State). As the winner of the WAC, the Cougars were invited to their first bowl game, to face the Oklahoma State Cowboys (6-5) of the Big 8 in the fourth annual Fiesta Bowl.                In the first quarter, the Cougar D corralled the Cowboys, forcing punts on each of the Cowboys first 5 possessions. The Cougar offense, meanwhile, moved the ball well early on. Senior QB Gary Sheide led the Cougars to the Cowboy 13, where Mark Uselman booted a 30-yard  field goal. Although they punted on their second possession, the Cougars took advantage of good field positi...
Read more