BYU Cougars, Utah State Aggies: Three keys to victory

The Utah State Aggies travled down I-15 in search of revenge from their last-second loss to BYU a year ago, but they weren't able to.

Here are three keys to why the Cougars won 6-3:

The right foot of Justin Sorensen

Make no bones about it, BYU won despite Sorensen, who's been battling significant injuries the past two seasons, and his shoddy record with the Cougars. Not only did he have a field goal blocked and missed an extra point, BYU went for it on fourth down once and had an unsuccessful fake field-goal attempt another time that potentially left at least 10 points on the board. As a side note, Sorensen came to BYU as one of the most prolific high school kickers in the state, but he has only amassed a 16-30 mark over his Cougar career.

Cody Hoffman

Even though Taysom Hill had an impressive night, throwing for 235 and a touchdown and tallying 80 yards on the ground, it was Hoffman's 58 receiving yards over a three-play span to close out the half that made the biggest difference. JD Falslev would get the only other yards on the drive, which just happened to be a 3-yard touchdown reception. Hoffman finished the game with eight receptions for 114 yards.

BYU defense

Ezekial Ansah headlined another steller defensive perfomance for the Cougars, racking up three tackles for loss, two sacks and two hits on Aggie QB Chucky Keeton. As a unit, the Cougar D recorded three sacks and nine tackles for loss. It also held a potent rushing attack to 41 yards and a strong overall offense to 243 yards all night.

Turnovers also played a part as BYU recovered a fumble at the Aggie 3-yard line to start the third quarter and Preston Hadley picked off a Keeton pass inside the BYU 5-yard line to hold the Aggies without points late in the third quarter.

Jonathan Boldt is the Editor-in-Chief of the UVU Review at Utah Valley University, and can be reached at jonboldt@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @jboldt24. www.uvureview.com