BYU football: Defense leads Cougars over Huskies

BYU vs. Washington boxscore

PROVO — For BYU, two quarterbacks were better than Washington's one.

Cougar QBs Riley Nelson and Jake Heaps engineered the offense efficiently while the defense slowed down the Huskies' star quarterback, Jake Locker, when it mattered most. In the end, the Cougars captured a 23-17 season-opening win Saturday night at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

"It was a complete victory," said BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall. "Our offense played well enough to win, our defense played well enough to win, and we won the field position battle, forcing Washington to come out of their own end zone as much as they did."

Nelson and Heaps rotated every series, but it didn't seem to disrupt the offense. The two QBs finished with the same number of passing yards — 131.

Asked about the two-quarterback system, Nelson said, "It won the game for us." Then, he quickly added, "it came down to defense and special teams."

Nelson threw a pair of touchdown passes, including a 48-yard strike to running back J.J. DiLuigi with 4:23 remaining in the third quarter that gave the Cougars a 23-17 advantage.

From there, the BYU defense sealed the victory.

Late in the game, Locker seemed to have the Cougars right where he wanted them. BYU was clinging to a six-point lead and he was driving his team for the potential game-winning touchdown. It was a chance at redemption for Locker, whose celebration penalty in 2008 cost the Huskies a shot at possibly beating the Cougars in Seattle. On Saturday, Locker marched the Huskies' offense to the BYU 27, where he faced fourth-and-7 with about two minutes remaining.

On that play, the Cougars dropped eight defenders into coverage and rushed three for the first time of the night. One of those rushers was sophomore defensive lineman Eathyn Manumaleuna, who knocked down Locker's fourth-down pass.

"It hit my helmet," Manumaleuna said with a smile. In his last game in a Cougar uniform — three years ago in the Las Vegas Bowl, prior to a mission — he blocked a last-second UCLA field goal to give BYU a win.

"The look was confusing and the tempo came out faster than it was supposed to," Mendenhall said of the defensive scheme that sparked Manumaleuna's heroics. "We anticipated the ball would come out quickly. That gave us a chance to be on the underneath routes. The only risk was the possible scramble by Locker, but we took a calculated risk."