Arlington, Texas • Brett Yormark had visions of making the weekend his conference’s coronation.
The Big 12 commissioner kept willing it into existence as he paced around AT&T Stadium’s sidelines before kickoff Saturday. He said BYU would put up a strong fight against No. 4 Texas Tech. Its quarterback was now healthy, he reasoned. Its running back was full strength, he argued.
And this was the day, he said, the Cougars would erase the College Football Playoff committee’s doubts about BYU and put two Big 12 teams in the playoff for the first time.
“I think this will be a better BYU team,” Yormark said. “All eyes are on the Big 12 today. We get to show the nation why the Big 12 is truly a different league. Two teams who deserve to be in the CFP.”
Over the next four hours, though, BYU showed its first matchup with the Red Raiders was no fluke. If anything, it made clear there was a massive gap between the Cougars and the nation’s No. 4 team.
No. 11 BYU went to the Big 12 title game and lost 34-7 to Tech. It regressed from the 29-7 thumping it received in Lubbock three weeks ago.
“Honestly, when you look at it, the game went pretty similar to last time,” safety Tanner Wall said plainly. “We lost the turnover margin, 4-0. Last time, it was 3-0. Looking at it, felt like they made more plays than us. We just weren’t really able to do that.”
Any case BYU had for an at-large playoff bid was all but gone.
The College Football Playoff committee had already told the Cougars they didn’t belong. BYU was the only power conference team to go 11-1, make the conference title and not be ranked inside the top 10. The committee members justified that position by pointing to the first time BYU played Texas Tech.
Dominated, they said. Outclassed, they believed.
Right or wrong, the Big 12 title game only confirmed those assessments.
Not even BYU could argue that.
“We will always be optimistic [to get into the playoffs], even if the chances are slim,” safety Faletau Satuala said.
So instead of arguing whether BYU was better than Tech, the Cougars asked a different question of the committee. Why should BYU need to beat the No. 4 team in the country at all to get into the playoff?
It’s a fair point. The Cougars went 11-2 with the sixth-best strength of record in the country. Its strength of schedule is better than half the teams currently projected in the field. Its only losses came to a top-five team.
Other teams in the field, namely Notre Dame, never beat a top 20 team this year. BYU beat two: Utah and Arizona.
If that didn’t matter, wide receiver Parker Kingston asked, why did BYU even travel to Arlington in the first place? It should have stayed at home, sat on an 11-1 resume and taken its chances.
“The fact that we aren’t getting the respect that we deserve, or the Big 12, it pisses you off,” Kingston said. “It makes you mad. To have the conference championship [loss] as the reason why we can’t get in is not right. I mean, what’s the point of even getting to the conference championship if it’s going to hurt your odds of getting into the playoff?”
BYU likely won’t get an answer to that. Still, head coach Kalani Sitake thinks it’s worth debating.
“They’re the No. 1 team in the country. So you go play the No. 1 team in the country twice, once in Lubbock and then at a neutral site, which is the same state. They do that to everybody,” Sitake said of Tech’s beatdown. “I think we have a great resume. I just hope that when they’re doing comparisons, they put us in there and make it fair. At least put us in the graphic. That’d be nice.”
But more realistically, the next task for Sitake wasn’t going to be the playoff. It will be working on getting back to the Big 12 title and closing the gap on the Red Raiders.
So far, BYU is starting the process. It just signed Sitake to a lucrative contract extension and will pour more money into recruiting and retaining its staff. It signed the best recruiting class in program history on Wednesday, ranking inside the top 20.
“We’ll be back soon. Within our third year in the conference, really proud of where we’ve been and how we built this team,” Sitake said.
Added wide receiver Chase Roberts, “A top 20 class, that’s going to help a lot. You need some talent on the team, obviously. Tech is a great team, and they were able to put together a good squad with all the resources they have. And I think that we’ve been able to step up and have those resources now. We’re going to be right up there with them.”
But that future won’t make the present sting any less.
The playoff selection show aired on Sunday morning and BYU found out what it had already known.
A note to readers: This story was updated after the College Football Playoff selection show aired on Sunday morning.