B-Y-who?

BYU is a paper tiger, propped up by bounces and box-score mirages. Yes, a win at Iowa State looks shiny, but peel back the layers: the Cougars have lived off turnover luck and short fields, not down-to-down dominance. Their offense is choppy, their run game goes missing for quarters at a time, and the pass protection springs leaks whenever the tempo rises. That’s a fatal mix heading into a fistfight with Texas Tech’s front—one of the nastiest, most relentless units they’ll see all year.

Turnover margin has been BYU’s life raft, and it’s overdue to flip. Those jump balls and tipped passes that turned into gifts? In Lubbock, they become incompletions—or worse. Tech collapses pockets with speed and length, forcing hurried throws and off-platform decisions, exactly where BYU’s efficiency craters. And when the Cougars fall behind schedule, they don’t have the explosives to bail themselves out.

“Undefeated and catching 10” is the loudest tell in the market: the number screams mismatch. There’s a reason playoff chatter never sounded right with this team—they don’t own the line of scrimmage, and they don’t stack sustainable drives against real defenses. This weekend is the reveal. The mirage fades, the turnover pixie dust blows away, and BYU gets shoved out of the contender conversation.