This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
Provo • It was against a lower division opponent and in front of a home crowd on a pleasant fall afternoon, but BYU quarterback Taysom Hill answered some of his critics with perhaps his best overall game of the season on Saturday.
So did Tanner Mangum, after a bit of a rocky start.
Hill completed 22 of 29 passes for 320 yards and two touchdowns and rushed for another score and Mangum threw for 121 yards in relief, while rushing for a surprising 59 yards, as the Cougars routed Southern Utah 37-7 in front of 59,302 at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
The Cougars improved to 6-4 and accepted an invitation to the Poinsettia Bowl after the game, while getting pretty much all they wanted from the mid-November tuneup, as sloppy as the victory was. Southern Utah dropped to 5-5, and goes back to Cedar City with a $400,000 paycheck wondering what might have been if it had played as well in the first half as it did in the second.
BYU jumped out to a 31-7 lead in the first half and substituted freely in the second; the only second-half scores were a pair of short field goals in the fourth quarter by Rhett Almond, the outcome long having been decided.
"We were able to control most of the game," BYU coach Kalani Sitake said. "We had a couple sluggish things happen in the second quarter with turnovers, but I thought we rallied and stuck with it."
Aside from a first-half fumble when he was trying to do too much on a busted play, and a second-half interception in which SUU cornerback Josh Thornton made a phenomenal play, Hill was mostly spectacular against the outmanned Thunderbirds.
He broke several arm tackles on a 16-yard touchdown run to open the scoring, then connected with Nick Kurtz for a 31-yard touchdown, placing the ball beautifully to Kurtz in the end zone on fourth-and-17. He also threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to fellow senior Colby Pearson and finished with a passer efficiency rating of 184.4, a career high for a game in which he's started.
"We sped up the tempo early in the game, and I think that's probably something we need to look at a little bit more," Sitake said. "In the first half, Ty [Detmer] felt comfortable going to that fast tempo, and it paid off."
Detmer also planned to give Mangum some "significant reps" in the second quarter when the outcome had not been decided, Sitake said, and the offensive coordinator delivered on that promise, inserting Mangum with BYU leading 14-0 early.
Mangum lofted a 12-yard pass to Brayden El Bakri (four catches 69 yards) on his first pass since last year's Las Vegas Bowl, then overthrew two receivers and the Cougars had to punt for the only time. Hill finished the half, and got two series in the third quarter before Mangum entered with 5:56 remaining and finished the game.
"They told me to be ready for a drive in the first half, but didn't tell me when, exactly," Mangum said. "I was a little bit amped up. Those two incompletions I had, I think I just put a little too much on it."
He was a perfect 10-for-10 in the second half, and also displayed some newfound running ability.
"I kept that hidden in the arsenal, you know?" he said of the 59 rushing yards, downgraded to 42 after he suffered a 17-yard sack. "I didn't necessarily expect that, either, but it happened."
BYU's defense hoped to post a shutout, like Utah did in a 24-0 win over SUU in its opener, but that was scuttled when Harvey Langi missed a tackle on SUU's Raysean Pringle, then missed an opportunity to recover a fumble on the same play caused by Dayan Lake.
Three plays later, Patrick Tyler threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Logan Parker, the tight end who had recovered Pringle's fumble, to make it a 54-yard gain.
In all, SUU was held to 21 rushing yards and 165 overall. The Cougars had 596.
"I am just happy with the win and how the guys played," Sitake said. "We just have to be more consistent [offensively], specifically in that third quarter. … We were excited to play this game, and it showed from the get-go."
Twitter: @drewjay —
Storylines
P The Cougars get bowl eligible, beating Southern Utah despite three turnovers and two missed field goals.
• BYU racks up 596 yards of offense and holds SUU to 165.
• The Thunderbirds avoid their second straight shutout at the hands of an FBS team with a 17-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter.