The following notes are from No. 13/15 BYU's 49-23 victory over UCF on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020, at FAU Stadium in Boca Raton Florida.
BOWL RECAP
BOWL PHOTO GALLERY
BYU POSTGAME NOTES
BYU FLAG BEARERS: USA flag: Brady Christensen; Florida flag: Kyle Griffitts; Y Flags: Kavika Fonua and Isaiah Kaufusi. Head coach Kalani Sitake also ran out in front of the team with the flag bearers to honor all the team’s seniors one last time.
COIN TOSS: Zach Wilson, UCF won the toss and deferred. BYU received the opening kick.
SERIES RESULTS: 2-1 BYU
TEAM NOTES
Boca Raton Bowl and BYU bowl record offensive records
BYU’s 655 yards of offense is a Boca Raton Bowl record, passing Western Kentucky’s previous record of 598 in 2016. The 655 yards are the most BYU has ever racked up in a bowl game
Putting up Points
BYU’s 49 points is tied for the second most ever in a bowl game. BYU scored 52 points in the 2010 New Mexico Bowl (52-24 vs. UTEP) and 49 points behind Wilson in the 2018 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (49-18 vs. Western Michigan).
Explosive Plays
BYU’s offense converted 13 of 24 first quarter plays for 10 or more yards to get off to an explosive beginning on its way to the victory. BYU now has 230 plays this year of 10 or more yards overall, which is No. 2 in the nation.
First in First Downs
The Cougars had 34 first downs on the night to move into a tie with Alabama for the No. 1 slot nationally with 308 first downs this season.
Even the Punt was Exciting
BYU punted for the first time in the game with 13 minutes to go in the fourth quarter. Even on the punt, BYU continued to make big plays as Ryan Rehkow delivered a 47-yarder inside the 20-yard line where linebacker Max Tooley delivered a highlight hit.
PLAYER NOTES
Zach Wilson
Wilson set a BYU bowl record for the most passing yards in a half with 330 yards (17 of 21) in the first half. Wilson’s performance also ranks tied for No. 5 in BYU football history for passing yards in any half — 1. McMahon 372 (1H-UTEP 1980) 2. Walsh 261 (2H-Fresno St 1993) 3. McMahon 354 (1H-CSU 1980) 4. Detmer 334 (1H-SDSU 1991) 5. Stewart 330 (2H-Cal 2014) Wilson 330 (1H-UCF 2020).
Wilson finished the game with a career-high 425 passing yards, setting the Boca Raton Bowl record. The previous record was 372 yards by Riley Ferguson, Memphis in 2016.
Wilson joins Jim McMahon (1980 and 1981) and Max Hall (2007 and 2009) as the only quarterbacks in BYU history to win two bowl games as a starter. Wilson also led BYU to a win in the 2018 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl as a freshman 49-18 over Western Michigan), going a perfect 18 for 18, passing for 317 yards and four touchdowns. Wilson (2018, 19, 20) also joins McMahon (1978, 80, 81), Ty Detmer (1989, 90, 91) and Hall (2007, 08, 09) as the only BYU quarterbacks to start three bowl games.
Wilson had two 400-yard passing games this season, tonight and at Houston.
Tyler Allgeier
With a career-high 173 yards in the game, Tyler Allgeier surpassed 1,000 yards for the season with 1,130 yards in his 10 games played. He is only the 16th BYU player to run for more than 1,000 yards in a season and the first since Jamaal Williams (current Green Bay Packer running back) had 1,408 yards in 2016. Allgeier has six 100+ rushing games this year in 10 games played, including the last four games he has played.
Isaac Rex
An All-America and Freshman All-America candidate, redshirt freshman Isaac Rex had two touchdowns for his fifth multi-scoring game of the season. He totaled 96 yards on five receptions for the game and is now tied for No. 3 in the nation with 12 TD catches. He shares the No. 1 ranking among tight ends with Florida All-American Kyle Pitts.
Lopini Katoa
Running back Lopini Katoa made an amazing, 30-yard catch laying out to make the play while setting up a BYU touchdown. The 30-yard reception is the fourth longest of his career and second longest this year (42 vs. Western Kentucky). His career long is 77 yards at Utah Sate in 2019. For the game Katoa finished with 90 receiving yards and 21 rushing yards .
Notable career highs/career firsts
Career-high passing yards: Zach Wilson (425)
Career-high rushing yards: Tyler Allgeier (173
COACH AND PLAYER QUOTES
Kalani Sitake
Initial thoughts on the game
"I'm thankful for the opportunity to play in this game. I want to thank first of all, RoofClaim.com for inviting us. It was a pleasure to be here. The hospitality that they showed us was awesome. I love this area. The people here were awesome. So thank you very much for that. I also wanted to express my gratitude to UCF for the game and quality opponent. Things just went our way tonight, but I know they're a well-coached team. Coach Heupel is a great coach. He has a great staff, and those guys will be back again, and they'll be ready to roll. I think things just happened for us real quick and worked in our favor. So I'm glad that we got the win. I'm very proud of our team, proud of our players and excited about the result. Obviously, we feel like we can do some things better, but I saw a lot of young guys that are going to be back next year show up and make a difference for us. I'm looking forward to those guys playing in 2021. I'm grateful that we got to play our 12th game, and really thankful that we have this game of football to play. I know there's a lot of people that work really hard to get us to play this game, and I hope they know how much we appreciate them. Speaking for our players and for our coaches, our program, we're thankful for this opportunity to play the game, and we really enjoyed the whole season."
On the defensive performance
"I'm proud of Coach Tuiaki, Coach Lamb, Coach Hadley, Coach Gilford. That in connection with the graduate assistants and the analysts that we have on our team and our coaching staff on the defense side did an amazing job. I'm really thankful that we were able to have great game plan. I felt like we were disruptive as a team, obviously, we felt like we had a lot of plays out there that we could have made, but you have to give credit to UCF and for (Dillon) Gabriel being able to run. He's athletic and been able to find ways to create more time for himself in the passing game. The run game got out a few runs, but I felt like we were able to corral it for the most part and not allow them to break big ones. I'm really proud of the defense. I would've taken 23 points in a heartbeat if you told me that before the game. Even with that being said, I'm still frustrated at the end because I felt like we gave up up too many easy plays. A lot of that has to do with some fundamentals and technique and we really just got to get these guys to finish games and finish strong. I think it didn't really matter what the score was, we wanted our guys to keep playing, and we got some valuable reps in that second half for a lot of guys that grew up a lot in this game. So I'm looking forward to them performing next year."
On Zach Wilson
"He's a great player. I think everybody's talked about him a lot, and I hope he knows how much I appreciate him. You know, we believe in him. Coach Roderick has done a great job with him. I'm just so thankful that I get the coach that guy. His work ethic and his passion for the game is awesome, and it's an honor for me to be his coach. I'm really proud of him and the things that he can do on the field. He had a great no look pass. I don't know if you guys saw it, but I've seen him practice that a lot. It was really cool for it to show up in the game, because he was torching our defense a little bit throughout the year in seven on seven with that throw. He's got just got a bag full of different types of throws that he practices, and he's young. He's got a lot of years of football left."
On how the team can build off of this season
"I mean, it doesn't really matter the wins and losses. What matters is the progress that we're making as a program. I know that's what fans look at, but for me, I'm seeing a lot of progress made over the last few years. We were really excited about this season because we knew we had a deep team, and we had it tested often. So I was really proud of our players, and I think this is going to be a huge step for a lot of young guys that made a lot of plays and that have bright futures here at BYU. We're gonna have to lean on them heavily as we go into the next season."
On the offensive productivity and game plan
"If they can score, I don't really care how much time they burn on the clock. We have to play a certain style of defense that will match that and complement what our offense is gonna do. We want our offense to be aggressive. We want them to score quickly, and then defensively, we're going to have to come up with some stops. I'm glad that we were able to do that early, and then gain a lead on UCF. That's an explosive team. I felt like we were in control for the major part of the game, and that is a huge part to our coaches being able to play complimentary football. This can't be just all looked at the head coach. This is something that our coaching staff has worked with and our players understand. I mean, our defense knows that our offense is going to go for it on fourth down quite often, and they're going to support and get off the bench ready to go. We talked about our game plan, we talked about our strategy with our players and we talked about adjustments that we're gonna make. It's important for them to know the adjustments that we're making on defense, for Zach and the rest of the offense to know that, just like special teams. These guys understand football. I thought they increased their football IQ during the offseason, and it showed. I got a great group of young men that can be coaches themselves, and they're doing it on the field right now, and it's been a pleasure, man. I'm so excited. I can't wait to see what these guys can do from here on out."
Zach Wilson
On what he saw that allowed receivers to have so many yards after catches
“They’re a great defense, but we noticed on film that they struggle a lot with crossing routes, mesh stuff, stuff underneath. So we had a lot of success with it. It was part of our game plan going in, and they struggled with it down the stretch. The goal was to get it out to those playmakers and let them make plays.”
On the one thing he’ll take away from tonight’s experience
“The love that we have for each other. The excitement that we had to play this game was special. Just looking around and soaking it all in was the coolest part. We’ll never have the same team again, with guys taking off next year, and things are always different. I love these guys, and that was the best part is that we came out with that excitement and energy, and guys were excited to play.”
On the touchdown pass to Neil Pau’u
“Great play calling all night by Coach A-Rod and Coach Fesi, Coach Clark — all those guys had to work together with Coach Grimey and Mateos out. Great play call, though. We called an out-and-up with Neil. We cleared out the corners, press-man. We tried to make the guy pressed on Neil feel the ability to undercut the out-route, so Neil set it up perfectly. By the looks of the play, I knew it was a ball I’d have to anticipate to get there. So I tried to line-drive it right as Neil cut up the field, hopefully stick it on his body because the window wasn’t too big. So that was the thought process there, was they’re an aggressive man-team and just really trying to take advantage of the out-and-up. We got a couple outs on them. So Neil did a great job of catching it and scoring right there. “
On defining characteristic of this offense
“Amazing offense. I think it’s just going to keep going from here. It’s been an exciting year of 2020, but also tons of ups and downs. Great way to finish this way, but this offense is just going to keep improving into next year and the year after that. We got some great coaches and great players around that are used to the scheme and know what we’re asking for. So it’s been an exciting year, but we’re going to keep growing on for next year.”
Isaiah Kaufusi
On what it means to go out with a big win
“It was just special. We’ve got a special team here. To go out in that way, and in that fashion, to dominate that game, it was just special. Really proud of the guys. Proud of the team. We worked so hard for this, and to be able to execute and play at a high level like we did tonight, it’s incredible. We knew we had a special team from the beginning, from all the adversity that we had faced, and I’m just really, really proud of our guys.”
On what made the defense dominant tonight
“I want to give a huge credit to our coaches. The game plan that they put together was one of the best I’ve been able to see throughout my time, and that comes from Tuiaki, and Kalani, and then stems down. All of our coaches have put in so much work and really just created a game plan that was incredible. Huge kudos to them, and huge kudos to our defense for being able to execute that game plan, being able to do what they asked us to do. But really, credit to our coaches. The goal was to contain that quarterback. We knew they were going to get some big plays here and there, but to just keep consistent. We rotated a lot of guys — a lot of young guys played. Overall, just a great, great team effort from everybody.”
Troy Warner
On what he thought about the defensive performance
“Coming in, we felt very confident in our ability, in the players that we had, and the game plan coming in. We came in here with a sense of swagger and executed at a high level early on in this game. That was a big tribute to the game plan coming in.”
On if the defense had a set number they wanted to limit the UCF offense to in scoring
“There isn’t a specific number that we had in mind, but the mentality week-to-week is always to dominate, and that’s obviously for them to score no points. We had some miscues early on that affected that, but, overall, I think we did a really good job at being assignment-sound and executing.”
Chandon Herring
On if the offense expected to do what it did on the ground
“Yes. With the work that we put in this week and the great help of our coaches, and the guys mentality during practice, we were expecting to put up lots of points and lots of yards. That’s something that we’ve tried to do a lot this year, and we’ve seen success. We’re happy with the way tonight turned out.”
Josh Heupel
Initial thoughts on the game
“Credit to BYU. They played really well. They’re a really good football team, obviously. We’re extremely disappointed with the way that we played tonight in every phase of the football game.”
On offensive struggles
“It was difficult, initially. We didn’t understand exactly what they were doing within their scheme. As we did, we adjusted to it, but we still didn’t play as efficiently as we were capable of. We knew what we were playing against on the other side of the football too. They have a really good offensive — explosive. There’s some things in the first quarter that we’ve got to do in a football game like this against a really good opponent that gives you a chance to stay in the game. We weren’t at our best tonight. Give them credit too. That’s not taking anything away from them — they’re a good football team, well-coached, play hard, physically mature.”
On Zach Wilson
“He’s a great player. That’s why he’s the way that he is [with talks of] the NFL. He’s got good arm talent, good decision maker, takes care of the ball, athletic enough to make plays with his feet. He does a good job.”
Jaylon Robinson
On what BYU’s defense did to stop the UCF offense
“I wouldn’t say they stopped us. I felt that we had a great game plan coming in. We played a great team that had a good game plan, but we didn’t execute the plays we needed to.”