BYU football: Cougars jump on Cowboys, then hang on

PROVO — All week, BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall was telling his players, and the media, that nothing would come easy for his team this season.

The Cougars proved him right Saturday, again and again.

Mendenhall expected the game against Wyoming to be similar to the San Diego State contest, which finished 24-21 for BYU. This time, Cougars beat the Cowboys in a nail-biter, 25-20, at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

And for BYU (3-5, 2-2) these days, no victory is taken lightly.

"Both teams were similar coming in and there were execution flaws on both sides that kept the game close," said Mendenhall afterwards. "We had a number of chances to pull away. But mistakes here or there kept it close. But I liked the resiliency of our team and I liked the end result."

Though the Cougar defense dominated most of the game, due to a couple of big mistakes by the offense, it took a defensive stand in the waning moments to preserve the win. Even when BYU comes out on top, it's always in dramatic fashion.

"That's just where we currently are," Mendenhall said. "Until our execution, until our position mastery, until our confidence, and until a volume of games and plays starts to add up, it will be like that. I told our team earlier this week that I anticipated this game to be very similar to San Diego State, where someone would have to be on the field to win the game. Sure enough, it ended up just like that."

BYU scored more points in a single game than it had all season and sent Wyoming (2-6, 0-4) home with its third consecutive loss.

The Cougars jumped out to a big lead early. Cody Hoffman returned the opening kickoff 34 yards to the Wyoming 42, then the offense drove 58 yards for a score, capped by a seven-yard touchdown run by JJ Di Luigi.

On the Cowboys' opening possession, a bad snap sailed over the head of quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels and into the end zone. Carta-Samuels kicked the ball out of the end zone for a safety to give the Cougars a 9-0 advantage five minutes into the game.

BYU punched in another touchdown minutes later on a four-yard run by Bryan Kariya to go up 16-0.

But the Cougars squandered that big lead as a pair of turnovers changed the complexion of the game. First, Wyoming linebacker Keith Lewis intercepted Jake Heaps' underthrown pass out in the flat and he returned it 55 yards for a touchdown to put Wyoming on the board, 16-7.