3 keys to BYU’s 34-14 win over Wyoming

Another week, another win for BYU.
The Cougars made the most of their first trip to Wyoming in 15 years, earning a convincing 34-14 victory over the Cowboys Saturday night at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie to move to 3-0 for the second consecutive season.
Here are three keys to BYU’s Saturday success against Wyoming.
In BYU’s first two contests this year against Southern Illinois and SMU, the offense registered nine total plays of more than 20 yards.
Saturday against Wyoming, however, the Cougars produced another nine such plays, and that’s not including Keelan Marion’s 100-yard kick return touchdown to open the second half.
Keanu Hill and Darius Lassiter each hauled in touchdowns of 20 yards, Chase Roberts had four different deep receptions and Jake Retzlaff added a long quarterback scramble as well.
Of BYU’s 458 total yards of offense, 45.8% came from those chunk plays of more than 20 yards.
“I think we should have beat this team by 60, 60 to zero,” Roberts said. “But as we go forward and fix those mistakes, and play clean, then we are going to beat a lot of teams this year.”
Eight days following a heroic defensive effort at SMU, Jay Hill’s unit offered plenty to like in Laramie.
Through three quarters against Wyoming — before BYU elected to put its second-stringers on the field — the Cougars surrendered just 139 yards at an average of just 2.8 yards per play.
Additionally, the Cowboys went just 4 of 14 on third down against BYU’s starters, they struggled to run the football and ended up punting eight times on the night.
Twenty-five different Cougar defenders recorded tackles, with Jack Kelly picking up a sack and Evan Johnson adding an interception for good measure.
Yes, BYU’s quarterback did throw a red zone interception, nearly had a few other passes picked off and only converted one third down.
But the Cougars wouldn’t have enjoyed the night they did without Retzlaff, who shook off early struggles to improve and ultimately turn in one of the better performances of his BYU career.
“You have to be really happy with the guys played on offense,” head coach Kalani Sitake said. “Looking at the interception Jake threw, we all know why it was an interception — it was under thrown. He can make better throws, and we challenged him to do that. We do not want him to feel shy about playing the game of football, and playing quarterback. Interceptions happen sometimes. We want him to keep being aggressive.”
Retzlaff ended up throwing for 291 yards and three touchdowns, completing 61% of his passes and recording a 151.0 rating.
With the Cougars’ depleted running back corps having trouble establishing the ground game, the redshirt junior QB pitched in to lead all rushers with 62 yards on six carries and, perhaps most importantly, no fumbles.
Retzlaff definitely wasn’t perfect against Wyoming and still has mistakes to clean up in his play, but BYU fans should feel a bit more encouraged by his efforts as the Cougars head into Big 12 play next week.