Even if the final score didn’t appear too jarring, BYU just handed Iowa State its first truly lopsided loss of the Jimmy Rogers era.
The Cougars defeated the Cyclones 24-10 Friday night in Provo, gaining 506 total yards to Iowa State’s 200 and controlling the contest from start to finish.
“Coach (Kalani) Sitake has a really well-rounded team,” Rogers told reporters postgame. “Awesome atmosphere to play in. We just didn’t play well in so many ways. Running the ball, stopping the run, and they were explosive. You can’t give up explosive plays against a team like that and expect to win football games, we just weren’t good enough at all.”
BYU’s defense dominated, allowing just 69 yards through the first three quarters and holding the Cyclones to 3.6 yards per play and a 2 of 13 mark on third down.
“Well, they’re really good up front. They move the front a bunch, creating communication issues up front with how they stem and move, and then the noise of it all here,” Rogers said of BYU.
“… When you give up a sack or you live behind the sticks on a delay of game against a great team, it’s going to kill you, and it killed us tonight. We couldn’t get anything going.”
Although BYU failed to convert on three different fourth down tries and left plenty of points on the board, Cougars quarterback Bear Bachmeier shredded Iowa State to the tune of 327 passing yards and 109 rushing yards, joining Taysom Hill and Steve Young as the only players in school history to post such numbers.
“When you get (Bachmeier) on the move, you’ve got to be able to tackle him,” Rogers said. “He had 109 yards rushing on nine attempts. We knew that he could use his legs. We expected him to run the ball, we just didn’t stop them.
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“And credit to (BYU), they’re really good, but I think we’re better than what we just showed here, although I don’t think the score really reflects how this game played out in any way.”
In addition to the Cyclones’ on-field struggles, Rogers shared that Iowa State’s coaches lost connection on their headsets early in the second half, creating further adversity to navigate.
“We couldn’t hear from above. Then that’s kind of where it got sloppy, and we were going in and out. Then we started signaling, then we just started calling it from the sidelines,” Rogers said.
“… We’ve got to handle it on our own, and so as soon as it wasn’t working after two minutes, the coordinators started rushing down to the field, and we were able to get them down there, but they missed a good segment of the game.”
Iowa State now falls to 3-3 in Rogers’ first campaign with the program, failing to build off last week’s win over West Virginia and now facing a tough upcoming stretch at Arizona, home against ranked Oklahoma State and at Baylor.
“I’m kind of at a loss of words because I felt like we were going to come into (Provo) and be competitive in so many ways, and we really weren’t in so many ways,” Rogers said.
“Like I told the team, 3-3 is where we’re at. It doesn’t mean that that’s where we need to be, and so we need to grow and get better. We need to take this time for one to heal from a physical standpoint, and then we’ve got to be able to take the next step mentally.”
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