Rise and shout, the Cougars are out

No. 3 Oklahoma may have lost Hyped Man Sam Bradford in the second quarter, but they still let the No. 20 BYU Cougars take it to ’em in crunch time. BYU notched the upset win 14-13 tonight in Dallas.

I’ve seen BYU make plenty of comebacks, but it’s been years since both the offense and defense played with the kind of mental toughness they did in tonight’s fourth quarter.

Cougars QB Max Hall threw a costly pick at the end of the third that left Oklahoma with good field position at BYU’s 27, with the Sooners already holding a 10-7 lead. They immediately picked up a first down, too. But that was about it for OU tonight. Oklahoma running back Chris Brown picked up a first and goal, then BYU stopped him on consecutive plays. Third and goal from the five. On the pass, BYU cornerback Brian Logan appeared to knock the ball down cleanly, but was flagged for pass interference in the end zone. I thought this was a horrible call, honestly, and it gave Oklahoma first and goal at the two. Having seen a number of BYU games in my life, I thought the upset bid was over.

Funny thing, though. Oklahoma only moved the ball one yard in three downs and had to settle for a field goal. (They actually went backwards after a delay of game call on fourth down.) The BYU defense was just too resilient. I was impressed. But the offense still needed to come through in a major way.

The offense’s final (meaningful drive) was classic BYU: pass, pass, pass, even out of obvious passing formations, but just keep moving the chains. They ran a few times, but only out of a sense of obligation. The nicest play was a shot downfield, when Hall rolled right on third and ten and drilled a pass twenty-two yards to tight end Dennis Pitta. Pitta caught four passes on the drive and picked up enough yards on his last grab to set up first and goal. After a make-up PI call on Oklahoma gave BYU a fresh set of downs, they resorted to running the ball. They made it most of the way on first down before getting stuffed on second. Then they took a delay of game of their own on third. The announcer wisely said it might be a blessing in disguise, since BYU could abandon the power running. Sure enough, Hall hit a wide-open receiver in the back of the end zone on the next play for the go-ahead score.

The endgame was sort of funny: after Oklahoma bungled a promising drive into a missed 54-yard field goal attempt, BYU had just enough downs to run out the clock, but barely. Thus Hall was being kind of cute with his kneels, standing for a second or two before going down. I get why he did it, but I also get why an OU defender took a shot at him after his kneel on second down. But the teams kept their heads, and the Cougars got the win.