BYU Cougars Look to Claw Back into Top 25 against UCF

Brigham Young University Cougars at University of Central Florida Knights (-3, 45 o/u)

Adding insult to injury, BYU (4-1, 2-0 away) not only lost last week to rival Utah State but, in the process, watched Heisman hopeful quarterback Taysom Hill go down with a broken leg. The Cougars, ranked No. 18 at the time, were down 14 points at halftime and were never able to recover.

Now BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall has to figure out a way to rally his troops going forward.

Mendenhall said, “It was really difficult to watch Taysom go down. Our execution will now have to be better from top to bottom because of Taysom’s ability to create. There just isn’t another Taysom Hill out there anywhere.”

The good news for BYU is that the team travels to Bright House Networks Stadium in Orlando to take on UCF (2-2, 1-0 home), who barely came away with a win last weekend against Houston.

UCF coach George O’Leary said, “Any win’s a good win. It’s a good first conference game. Houston’s a good offense. I thought, except for a couple series, the back end played very well today and tackled well.”

In fact, the game effectively ended when Knights defensive back Brandon Alexander, who also had nine tackles and a pick, forced a fumble with 24 seconds left.

This Thursday night game will feature plenty of offense; the over at 45 is definitely reachable.