This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

One of the elements that was overlooked by many prior to Saturday's showdown at FedEx Stadium between BYU and West Virginia — won 35-32 by the Mountaineers — was the fact that WVU had a bye last week while the Cougars were battling it out with UCLA.

Don't look now, but BYU's opponent this Friday at LaVell Edwards Stadium — Toledo — had a bye this weekend and will be well-rested, and well-prepared, for the Cougars.

Not surprisingly, WVU used a little play that coach Dana Holgorsen admits came from the BYU offenses of old — the little delayed flair pass to a running back out of the backfield — to carve up the BYU defense all game. West Virginia QB Skyler Howard completed 31 of 40 passes for 332 yards and a TD.

Holgorsen had nothing but praise for BYU after the game.

A couple of his BYU-related comments:

* "BYU is a heck of a football team; They're exactly who we thought they were. They're physical, they're mature, they don't make a lot of mistakes, they keep battling. For the two to three decades I've been watching them, the one thing that I knew about them — because of their makeup — is that they never quit, ever. They never quit."

* "We used to show [film] when they beat SMU, they were down in a bowl game a long time ago, they were down about 30-something points and they came back and won. This is way back in the Jim McMahon days."

* "I can talk about how much respect I have for their program now. So I knew they wouldn't quit and we talked about it all day long and all week long and sure enough those guys kept playing, kept playing, kept playing."

* "Those guys are competitors. Taysom Hill has been doing this for a decade at this level and we knew he was going go continue to do that. The rapport he's going to have with these receivers as you watch the rest of the season is going to continue to get better and better."

* "Nothing really happened that surprised us. They're a good football team and they're going to win a lot of games. A 1-3 [record] for them is a shame, but they're going to win a lot of games."

* "That back [Jamaal Williams] is good. He is the all-time leading BYU rusher — and if he's not, he's awful close. He's a good player. He will be playing for a while. We're going to face a lot of those guys and [we] have to get better."

Holgorsen on BYU's field goal last play of the first half and why he protested when refs put a second back on the clock:

"I think I'm right. I had thought that it was in the rule book that there's got to be three seconds in order to spike it, and he disagrees with me. That's something we will look at. There is clearly one second, and he made a judgement call and they looked at it and said there's one second and I said, 'there's got to be three.' So we will figure it out; I think I'm right, but he thinks he's right."

Turns out, Holgorsen was right. In 2013 the NCAA put in a rule that says there needs to be at least three seconds remaining for a spike to stop the clock.