BYU vs Cincinnati

Gameday

The BYU Football Team hosted the University of Cincinnati at Lavell Edwards Stadium in Provo, Utah for a Friday night battle on ESPN. The Bearcats came into the game well rested with a bye week and the nation’s 5th best passing offense.

Cincy starts hot

BYU was unable to connect on offense in the first quarter, allowing Cincinnati to jump out to an early 10-0 lead.

Lebronson Lives

Bronson Kaufusi came up big with a blocked field goal attempt at the start of the second quarter to set up the offense, but despite a 38-yard reception from Mitch Mathews, the Cougars settled for a 29-yard field goal by Trevor Samson to make it 10-3 with 13:29 until the half.

Alge Brown powers it in

Two pass interference penalties aided BYU in answering with a scoring drive. The first penalty came early in the drive, setting up big plays from Brown and Kurtz to get the Cougars into scoring position. When faced with a potential fourth down, another pass interference call put the team at first and goal. Brown rushed five yards to score BYU’s first touchdown of the game, making it 17-10 with 4:30 left in the half.

Kurtz puts his foot down

Out of the locker room, BYU’s offense marched down the field to start the third quarter. On fourth and five, Mangum found Colby Pearson for a 16-yard gain to continue the drive. With 9:31 left in the quarter, Kurtz caught his first touchdown of his BYU career on a 19-yard pass from Mangum to tie up the game at 17 apiece.

Defensive Stand

Led by Bronson Kaufusi’s three sacks, the Cougar defense had eight sacks in the game for the first time since 1997 as it stymied the Bearcat offense over the final three quarters. The defense also had 12 tackles for loss. Sione Takitaki led the Cougars with a career high of nine tackles to go along with two tackles for loss while Fred Warner and Sae Tautu each had two stops behind the line as well.

Offensive Sparks

Cincinnati regained the lead, 24-17, toward the end of the third quarter, but the run game knotted the score again between the Cougars and Bearcats. Bernard ran for 40 yards with a defender on his hip to switch the field position. Then with 10:24 left in the game, Brown scored his second touchdown of the game on a 2-yard carry to tie the score at 24-24.

After stout defense led by another sack from Kaufusi, BYU forced Cincinnati to punt again. Starting on the BYU 47-yard line, Mangum found a wide-open Kurtz for 53 yards and his second touchdown of the night. The Cougars took the lead 31-24 for the first time in the game with 8:14 remaining in the contest.

Bernard takes it to the house

The running backs split up the load with Algernon Brown running for 88 yards and two touchdowns on 20 carries. Freshman Francis Bernard rushed 60 yards on four carries, including a run for 11 yards to get his second-career touchdown with 4:35 left to extend the Cougars’ lead to 38-24.

On to Glory

After a rough first half of offense, BYU (5-2) finished the game with 449 total yards to Cincinnati’s (3-3, 0-2 American Athletic Conference) 341 yards. BYU looks to continue its winning streak against Wagner at home on Saturday Oct. 24 at 1 p.m. MDT.