It felt inevitable as BYU left Lubbock, Texas, two weeks ago, following a numbing November loss.
Even if Texas Tech was the eighth-best team in the country, even if it was on the road, even if one of BYU’s stars was hampered, the Cougars were about to be punished by the College Football Playoff committee for dropping their first game of the season. And, accordingly, BYU promptly fell from No. 7 to outside the cutline to make the postseason.
Even as BYU coach Kalani Sitake insisted he didn’t care — that it didn’t matter — his locker room did.
“Coach doesn’t like to talk about the playoff narrative. We try to reflect that. But, you know, we know what the goal is,” lineman Keanu Tanuvasa said. “So when the ranking comes out, we’re surprised by it.”
It’s why the Cougars, who entered the week one spot away from being in the bracket, have spent the last two games trying to make up ground in the playoff race.
It started by obliterating TCU 44-13 in Provo. And in perhaps its last consequential regular-season game, BYU beat Cincinnati on the road by double digits.
A statement win?
Tanuvasa thinks so.
“The Texas Tech loss made us have a sense of urgency. It made us recognize that we’re not just trying to squeeze by,” Tanuvasa said. “A lot of people say we’re lucky. I think we’re diligent, and I think we expect to win.”
BYU’s 26-14 win reflected the latter part. Whereas the Cougars needed a comeback in every Big 12 road game this year, this time they never trailed a seven-win opponent.
Offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick didn’t need any fancy plays or to leave anything to chance. Instead, BYU acted like it was the better team.
The Cougars handed the ball off to LJ Martin time and again and let their offensive line overwhelm Cincinnati’s defense. Martin ran for 222 yards on 32 carries — both career highs. He joked it was the “easiest night of his life” as there was so much running room.
Martin could have easily just run out the clock with under two minutes to play. Instead, he punished the Bearcats one more time for a 33-yard touchdown run.
It won’t hurt in the playoff committee’s eyes to extend the lead, either.
“If you guys didn’t want to score, you shouldn’t run the ball,” Martin told the coaches.
But will any of it change the committee’s feelings about BYU?
That part, ultimately, remains to be seen.
None of the 10 teams ahead of the 11th-ranked Cougars dropped a game on Saturday. And the committee has consistently said BYU lacks quality wins outside of beating Utah, which barely escaped Kansas State this week.
But the win over Cincinnati did buy BYU more time to impress the committee.
By beating the Bearcats, the Cougars eliminated a major hurdle to punching their ticket to the Big 12 title game. If BYU had lost, it would have likely been eliminated from contention.
Now all it has to do is beat UCF in Provo and it will find itself playing for a conference title.
Plus, BYU is putting together a strong resume in the aggregate, even if it lacks a signature win. It just navigated a six-game stretch that BYU coaches argued was the most treacherous in program history. It went 5-1 over that time frame.
BYU has the sixth-best strength of record in the country, according to ESPN. That is ahead of Oregon and Alabama.
It also sits at 26th in strength of schedule — ahead of Notre Dame, Oregon, Ole Miss, Ohio State and several other playoff contenders.
“If we win, we are in,” Martin said.
But that is not necessarily true.
BYU could go to Arlington and lose again to Texas Tech.
The committee has said it doesn’t knock teams for getting into a title game and playing an extra week. But last season, the committee did drop teams for losing conference title games. SMU was 11-1 and went to the ACC title game, losing to Clemson. It fell several spots to No. 11 after the loss. That was just enough to be the last team in the field and the Mustangs needed plenty of desperate campaigning from SMU coach Rhett Lashlee to eke in.
“I’m not really worried about that. I’m not here to campaign. I’m just here to play football with our team, and we just try to find ways to win the game,” Sitake said. “Let the experts figure that stuff out. We’re going to try to get our next win and just be thankful for what we’re able to do. Football is hard, man.”
If BYU needs to beat Texas Tech to get in, Martin thinks it’s possible.
“That bye week [before Texas Tech], we had a little bit of extra time so we changed some stuff. We were doing stuff that we usually didn’t,” Martin said. “We just got back to doing what we did before.”
But for now, BYU feels like it accomplished its mission getting past Cincinnati.
“I don’t know what was so lucky about tonight,” offensive lineman Bruce Mitchell said. “We just want to go and compete for the conference. You win the Big 12, you’re going to the playoffs.”
So maybe the rest of the way, the Cougars won’t be surprised by the committee’s playoff rankings.