The following notes are from No. 23 BYU's 27-17 win over No. 19 Arizona State at LaVell Edwards Stadium on Saturday night.
COIN TOSS: James Empey, Keenan Pili, Jaren Hall, Payton Wilgar
ALUMNI FLAGS: Shay Muirboork (LB), Chad Lewis (TE), Tim McTyler (DB)
SERIES RESULTS: 8-20-0
ATTENDANCE: 61,370
TEAM NOTES
The Series
After welcoming No. 19 Arizona State to Provo for the first game since 1998, BYU defeated the Sun Devils. The win for the Cougars pushes the overall series record to 8-20 for Arizona State.
Ranked Teams
For the second week in a row No. 23 BYU faced a ranked opponent and won. The last time that the Cougars defeated two ranked teams was in 2019 when BYU beat No. 14 Boise State 28-25 and No. 24 USC 30-27. With the win over then-No. 21 Utah last week, this is the fourth consecutive season BYU has defeated a ranked opponent. This is the first time that BYU has defeated a ranked opponent in back-to-back weeks during the regular season, and first in back-to-back games since 2009 (No. 22 Utah, No. 16 Oregon State).
Turn It Over
The Cougars nabbed four turnovers against Arizona. It was the most BYU has had all season after posting two against Utah last week. Talmage Gunther forced a fumble which was picked up by Hayden Livingston on Arizona State’s first drive of the game. Max Tooley and Malik Moore followed that turnover up with an interception each while Tyler Allgeier forced a fumble on a BYU turnover which was scooped up by quarterback Jaren Hall.
Power 5 Wins
With the win over Arizona State, BYU has consecutively defeated three Power 5 schools. It is the first time in a single season the Cougars have won three consecutive games against a Power 5 team. In 1983, BYU defeated Missouri in the final game of the season before taking down Pitt and Baylor to start the 1984 season. This is BYU’s 30th win over a Power 5 school since 2003, the most of any team not in a P5 conference.
Undefeated
For the second consecutive year, BYU has opened the season going 3-0. In 2020, BYU defeated Navy (55-3), Troy (48-7) and Louisiana Tech (45-14).
PLAYER NOTES
Jaren Hall
Hall finished the night going 15 for 27 with passing yards 214 and throwing for two touchdowns. He added 38 yards on the ground with a long of 28 yards. Hall had 119 passing attempts before throwing his first career interception. It was the longest streak since Zach Wilson set the record in 2020 with 184.
Gunner Romney
Romney proved a weapon for BYU catching six passes for 95 yards. He had a long reception of 34 yards (twice) as well as his first touchdown of the season.
Ryan Rehkow
In the first quarter, Rehkow booted an 83-yard punt. The kick was a modern-day school record after Scott Arellano recorded an 81-yarder in 2014 against Middle Tennessee. He finished the game with 6 punts for 317 yards, an average of 52.8 yards per punt. He had four punts of 50 yards or more.
Notable career highs/career firsts
First Forced Fumble: Talmage Gunther (1st quarter)
Long Receptions: Dallin Holker (31-yards, 1st quarter)
First Career Sack: Earl Tuioti-Mariner (11-yards, 2nd quarter)
Total Tackles: Max Tooley (10)
Career High Tackles for Loss: Keenan Pili (2)
BYU head coach Kalani Sitake
On what the win meant
A lot of fun. I think we could have done some things to help us out a little bit and not make it feel like we were having a heartache at the end. We made a lot of people nervous and we need to find ways to not make so many mistakes. I give a lot of credit to ASU. You can tell they have a lot of specialties, defensively and offensively. We’re fortunate that we were able to make a few more plays and get a few turnovers. We know that we made mistakes and that we can play better. We’re looking forward to getting better. We’re going against some really good teams and I’m proud of the way our guys played and I’m proud of the outcome.
I’m really proud of our coaches and our fans. They are amazing. They were so loud and I’m really thankful that they did that. That’s a huge advantage for us. Stay loud. The loud fans make everything difficult for the other team. I still think that we can still play better football. We’re grateful that ASU made things difficult. We want to get better.
On Tyler Allgeier
I don’t mind him being a good example of what our team is all about. He doesn’t quit. Just him making that tackle was a huge key for us tonight. Those types of plays help you win games. I haven’t watched the film, but I believe that he went through some tough defenders.
On the injuries
I don’t know the details right now on Jaren Hall. We’ll have to take a look at it. We are hoping that it will be good. I’m happy that he was able to walk off the field.
Jacob Oldroyd isn’t out for the season. Keenan Pili, we still have to evaluate it. It looks like a leg injury. That tells you a little bit more about his injury. If it’s a season-ending injury, I’ll tell you guys on Monday.
On the physicality of this game
They were playing some physical football. They were playing some physical football. We just had to rally back and get some drives. I’m proud of the way our other linebackers filled in for Keenan Pili and how Baylor Romney was able to step in for Jaren Hall.
You have seen Baylor Romney play enough now. You know what kind of composure he has. You know how calm he is and he has a lot of confidence in himself. The team trusts him. We don’t feel like we have regular backups. We have a lot of depth on this team and we don’t want to be tested, but injuries happen and we are lucky to have guys step in.
BYU Quarterback Jaren Hall
On Tyler Allgeier’s forced fumble
Tyler had an all-out effort showing how much he loves this team and loves this game. It’s one of the greatest plays I’ve ever seen if not the greatest play I’ve ever seen, so kudos to him. He really saved that game. Tyler is the player of the game in my mind.
On his health
I feel good. Just got the wind knocked out of me. Those are some big boys.
On Baylor Romney coming in to finish the game
What do you expect from the guy? That’s what he does. I’m proud of him and happy for him. He just went in and did his thing. Cold turkey all game and then goes out and makes plays. He came through in the clutch for us in the end.
On who BYU is after a 3-0 start
Warriors. We haven’t won by the biggest difference in score, but we grind it out from the beginning to the end. Even when things feel down, I don’t think we ever lose our energy. This is a group of guys who love each other and love coach Kalani and everything he teaches us. We’re bonded to this culture and it’s contagious. I think this is a different team than you’ve seen in the past at BYU.
I always say it’s better to learn from your wins than your losses. We have a resilient team. It’s a very special group.
BYU Running Back Tyler Allgeier
On the play after the interception
I just wanted to catch up to him and get him. Thankfully it was successful. I was just trying to do my part and anyone would have done it and I just happened to be the one who did it. It came out of nowhere. I decided to try something new and it ended up working.
On the physicality of the game
There were two face mask pulls in a row. They were playing dirty toward the end. We all came together and just pounded. We wasted almost six minutes on the clock and just did our thing.
BYU tight end Isaac Rex
On aggressive play call for the touchdown to win the game
Baylor Romney just chucked it up there and threw a perfect pass, right over the defender's head, it was a really catchable ball. It was awesome to see Baylor trust me and throw me a really good ball.
On Jaren Hall
Shoutout to Jaren because he led us the whole way there. Jaren played his heart out tonight, it was sad to see him limp off the field, but he’ll be back and he played like an absolute monster tonight.
On depth of the team
We are so deep on the offensive level at every position. We have a lot of fighters on this team.
On what play was the turning point
Easily, Tyler Allgeier chasing down the linebacker and forcing the fumble to get possession back. Tyler just went back to his linebacker mode and literally saved the game for us because ASU would have gone up if they had scored that touchdown. Tyler’s hustle was by far the most important play in this game.
On the crowd
The ROC was probably the key, they were literally the 12th man. The ASU offense couldn’t even hear the quarterback when they were over by the ROC and they false started five times because of that. They were the difference-maker in this game. They are so energetic and have such an awareness of what is going on in the game and I just love the ROC and all the BYU fans so much.
BYU linebacker Max Tooley
On the interception
That's just 11 men on the defense executing – Payton Wilgar obviously with the big hit. I thought he was going out to the flat and I was ready to break on that, but I saw Payton lay the wood on that screen and you’ve got to get those. Our coaches say that anything in the air we need to capitalize on it and I’m happy that I was in the right place to make a play on the ball.
On Tyler Allgeier's linebacker skills
That was 200 IQ. Seeing the interception was a dagger in the heart. To watch Tyler, his instincts, his awareness, honing his linebacker days, I still think he could be a first-round linebacker if he was still at that position. That was a huge game-changer, a huge momentum shifter and ultimately one of the biggest plays that lead to us winning the game.
On the impact of the crowd
The difference between playing second and third down and 10 versus playing second and third down and 20 or 25 towards the end, those are some of the most important plays. It makes coverage so much easier because you can keep everything in front of you and you have so much field to work with. All credit to the ROC, they were monstrous tonight. They brought the energy and caused a lot of the penalties their offense had.
On the flow of the game-changing to a defensive slugfest
We want to start fast every game and Talmage Gunther with the huge play on the kickoff, that really set the tone but you play off of what happens next. The offense had a few three-and-outs. We’re always up for the challenge and always have our offenses back. If they can’t get it done or we cant get it done, we rely on each other to play. And we knew that playing a ranked ASU team was going to be a dog fight the whole way. We just trusted our process and trusted our scheme and played hard on defense and the offense played their butts off as well. We just trusted the process, trusted our technique and making the plays that matter.
On defenses resilience
Our defense is always ready to step up to the occasion, no matter what the situation is or how many unanswered points they score, we are going to find a way to play tough and do what we know how to do.
ASU Head Coach Herm Edwards
On the team play tonight
The discipline of the team was not very good. That starts with me, I need to fix it, it’s my responsibility. When you play a team like this on the road and you turn the ball over and you collect 17 penalties it’s very difficult, so that’s where it all starts. We’ve got to get it fixed and we got to get it fixed fast.
We don’t practice that way and we didn’t help ourselves. And you got to give BYU credit, I’m not taking anything away from the way they played.
On strategy miscalculation
There was a lot of miscommunication there, I don’t want to get into the he-said-she-said, but we got to get it fixed.
On noise factor on play
I think the noise played a little bit of a factor when we were backed up obviously, but it’s just too many penalties. We had some momentum coming into the third quarter, I thought we got back in the game, and then the underlying recurring thing happened, we turned the ball over, it’s more penalties and you can’t play football like that, it’s just embarrassing, it’s not a good look.
On Jaren Hall
All week we talked about his ability to run, and he got out on us a couple of times, he’s a good football player, that was a concern for us to keep him in the pocket and he got away from us and made some big plays.
On takeaways
We thought the game was going to swing on that interception, the running back Tyler Allgeier did a great job of stripping it out and they got the ball back, and that’s kind of how the game went. But it’s all about us right now, it’s about us fixing our errors. If we can fix all that we’ll have a chance to play some football.
On fixing mistakes in practice
We’ll talk about it and hopefully, the players will look at the tape, and every guy will look at himself and say, “I can’t continue to do this, we can’t continue to function this way.” We have the makings of being a good football team, we can do this, it was just not good football to watch.
On injuries and their impact
We’ll you know injuries always play a part, but it’s football you’re going to have injuries. We’ve got to find a way to fix ourselves, not putting ourselves in bad situations.
ASU Offensive Coordinator Zak Hill
On the stadium atmosphere
I think the crowd got to us tonight. It was a bigger crowd and we need to handle that better. We need to figure out a better way to operate and not freak out in difficult situations. Being on the road you feel that added pressure with the crowd and we didn’t handle that very well, so we will learn from that and move forward.
On the running game in the second half
I think our guys did a good job being physical in that second half. We ended up getting into some longer situations that forced us into pass mode and we weren’t hitting that stuff like we needed to be, so that makes it tough. If we would have stayed on schedule better, we would have had a better outcome.
ASU Defensive Coordinator Antonio Pierce
On going down in the first half
They showed up, especially with those two touchdowns. They had good momentum and it’s the little things we need to be better on.
On having so many penalties
It’s inexcusable. Coach Edwards will address that, but those offsides and face mask calls are inexcusable. We have to do better, that is not good enough and it cost us tonight.
ASU Quarterback Jayden Daniels
On crowd noise
It was a big factor, we haven’t played in a hostile environment like this since Michigan State, and it’s the little stuff you know, not being able to get a count, the crowd played a big factor in the game.
We saw it kill a lot of drives. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to clean up those penalties, we can’t have penalties like this and expect to win games. We need to learn from it and move on for the next game.
On turnovers and penalties
Unfortunately, the couple drives we had down there, we shot ourselves in the foot.
It starts with me. I’ve got to play better always. We had four turnovers. It starts with me, we’re just going to move on from this and learn from this.
ASU Defensive Back Chase Lucas
On how he felt the game went tonight
It’s hard to win an away game, especially when there are so many penalties. That’s definitely something we are going to work on this next week. We had a few mislayers that cost us that we need to fix and we will move on from there.