You almost had to feel sorry for the ESPN analysts as Saturday night’s Alamo Bowl was drawing to a close.
They were gamely trying to find a way to spin something positive out of what the so-called “experts” predicted would be a Colorado conquest and instead turned out to be a BYU beatdown.
Let me be clear. I have nothing against Coach Prime and his stable of future NFL stars. The Buffaloes have been fun to watch all season, and I watched them along with everybody else. I also acknowledge that the huge TV audience expected for the bowl matchup was fueled by that interest in Colorado.
This was advertised as the best non-CFP bowl game: a matchup of two ranked teams, even if they are in the same conference, who both earned a share of the Big 12 title but were held out of the conference championship on tiebreaker technicalities.
The sportscasters finally settled on how cool it was that the star players had elected to suit up for the game and put their future NFL stock on the line. I agree with them on this; it was a refreshing change, when so many others in recent years have elected to opt out instead.
I also sympathized with Coach Prime and his boys hoping to ride into the sunset together in a blaze of glory. That would have made a great ending for what’s almost certain to become a Hollywood script someday.
But to their credit, the Cougars weren’t going to lie down and allow the stampede to run over them without doing their level best to slow it down.
And boy, did they ever.
Except for the one big run by Heisman superman Travis Hunter, BYU held the high-flying Colorado offense to three yards in the first half and 210 total for the evening.
The team that had averaged nearly 35 points per game during the rest of the season had to scrap to get two touchdowns against the Cougars.
Sometime during the third quarter, the analysts allowed that “this was the BYU team that started the year 9-0.”
Well yes, it was. Fundamentally sound, hard-working and hungry, the Cougars chased the only prize that was still within their reach, and they left no doubt that they had earned it.
BYU fans are doubtless still debating about what might have been had BYU not lost those two earlier conference games by a handful of points. We now know that Jake Retzlaff, who did not look like himself in those outings, was playing injured.
Coach Kalani Sitake took the high road when the inevitable questions about what should or could have been were tossed in his direction after the Alamo victory. He was right to do so, since that’s the classy approach, besides the fact that nothing he said would have changed anything.
The truth is that Colorado took a hit in every aspect of the game: offense, defense and special teams. They were outplayed and outcoached from every possible angle, and because of that, this BYU win is the most significant for the Cougars in the modern era of college football.
Let’s be realistic here. The college football world of 1984 no longer exists, and it hasn’t for a long time. I’m not going to get in a debate with anyone about whether that national championship or this bowl victory is more important. It’s apples and oranges.
In 2024, BYU was the higher-ranked team and had the better record, but they were still picked to lose the game. They got to play in front of a capacity crowd of 64,000+ and millions more on one of the big national networks in prime time. They also reportedly earned the highest bowl payout in school history.
The Cougars used the bowl game to cap an 11-win season, especially remarkable given last year’s woeful 5-7 record, not to mention the prediction at the beginning of the season that they would finish near the bottom of the conference.
It was a spectacular ending to a stunning turnaround, and one that will keep conversations going for many seasons to come.