ORLANDO, Fla. — Anyone who watched Oklahoma State and reigning Doak Walker Award winner Ollie Gordon II run throughout BYU’s protection final week in Provo was in all probability anticipating extra of the identical from the UCF Knights on Saturday afternoon.
In any case, UCF has one other excellent operating again in RJ Harvey, a operating quarterback in Jacurri Brown and simply occurs to have the third-best speeding assault within the nation.
Maybe that’s why the Knights had been a slight favourite, regardless of their 3-4 file and four-game shedding streak coming in.
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However the Cougars’ protection flipped the script close to the make-believe land of the Magic Kingdom, principally shutting down UCF’s highly effective run sport in a 37-24 win in entrance of 42,144 at FBC Mortgage Stadium.
“Ollie Gordon had an excellent day on us, for positive,” mentioned BYU linebacker Isaiah Glasker. “We knew we wanted to cease the run, and we did.”
The Cougars (8-0, 5-0) really out-rushed the Knights (3-5, 1-4), selecting up 252 yards on the bottom; UCF completed with 181 speeding yards.
Harvey, who went for 198 yards in final week’s 38-35 loss at Iowa State, completed with 127 yards and two touchdowns. He had runs of 23 and 54 yards within the first half, however was principally quieted the remainder of the best way.
“It’s at all times good seeing good operating backs within the Huge 12,” Glasker mentioned. “We all know each group we play goes to have some good operating backs. Going towards them simply kinda makes our protection higher.”
Glasker obtained his second interception of the season, whereas freshman security Faletau Satuala obtained the primary decide of his profession.
Brown ran for greater than 150 yards final week towards the Cyclones however was so ineffective towards BYU that the redshirt sophomore ended up getting benched. Brown was 8 of 17 for 96 yards and two interceptions, for a passer ranking of 71.
The Miami switch was sacked one and ran for under 9 yards, on six makes an attempt.
“We knew he was a runner. We prepped as if we had been taking part in an possibility offense. I assumed we shut him down properly and made some large performs on him,” mentioned BYU defensive lineman Blake Mangelson, who had one among his greatest video games as a Cougar.
Mangelson had 4 tackles, a sack and a cross breakup. Glasker and security Crew Wakely led BYU with 5 tackles apiece, whereas Harrison Taggart and Tanner Wall additionally had 4.
“The most important factor the coaches emphasised this week was dominating the entrance, which I believe the (defensive) tackles, (defensive) ends did an exceptional job at doing,” Mangelson mentioned. “That was the primary factor, simply dominate their entrance.”
Maybe probably the most eye-popping stat was time of possession; BYU had the ball for 40 minutes, 28 seconds. The Cougars had an 18-play drive that resulted in a subject objective, and picked up a whopping 29 first downs.
“The offense performed properly. Forty minutes of time of possession is insane,” Mangelson mentioned. “That enables our protection to not get drained, offers us time to get well and allow us to carry out to our highest degree.”
BYU was 2 for two on fourth down, which included a nifty pretend subject objective run by kicker Will Ferrin that netted 8 yards and a primary down. BYU is now 15 of 18 on fourth down this season.
UCF was simply 2 of 10 on third down per week after Oklahoma State was 11 of 19. Glasker mentioned he and the remainder of the protection labored in follow all week to offer Brown seems that will confuse him.
“We’d bluff on performs and make it so he wasn’t actually positive what protection we had been in,” Glasker mentioned. “I really feel like that kinda helped us in the long term.”
BYU was additionally helped by roughly 10,000 Cougar followers, a lot of whom stayed to the tip as UCF followers headed to the exits in droves.
“I wasn’t shocked, as a result of I understand how BYU followers journey,” Glasker mentioned. “I’m tremendous grateful for them, particularly with the ability to search for within the stands and seeing all blue. It form of gave us motivation, too, particularly if you get chants from UCF followers and you then hear BYU followers and they’re loud, too.”
Added quarterback Jake Retzlaff: “We’ve been saying it for a very long time — we obtained the very best fanbase within the nation. They confirmed up in the present day.”
And so did BYU’s rush protection.