Gordon Monson: For BYU, victory in the Big 12 was a long time coming

LaVell Edwards Stadium was blue, bursting and buzzing on Friday night. A cumulus combo-cloud of hope and anticipation hung thick in the air. Fannies were in every seat. The Cougars had waited a long, long time for this. All of it.

Next thing … the first 29 minutes of the first half of their first major league game at home happened and reality was setting in. The kind of reality that bites. The kind of reality that sees the BYU pass attack go for all of two yards over that span, the whole offense go for just 38. And then …

Whoa. Hold it right there. Let’s back up for a second or two and consider the occasion, because that’s what gave what happened over the next 31 minutes straight through the second half special meaning.

There have been 40 fistfuls, maybe 50, maybe more, of big moments, extraordinary ones, at LaVell’s Place through the years, beginning back before the building was named for the coach who made football at BYU what it was, what it is, what it longs to be.

Some were happy, not all of them.

Big losses happened, like the one absorbed against Air Force in the very first game at the expanded version of the stadium nearly 50 years ago, and big wins, like the victory over defending national champion Miami in 1990, and well … so many others on both sides of the ledger. Too many to mention here.

But go ahead, add one more to the list, as BYU on about as beautiful a September night as could be imagined hosted and played host to Cincinnati, the Cougars’ first face-off on their home field against a fellow Big 12 school.

Both teams were in the pool, new to the pool. It wasn’t quite like facing Texas or Oklahoma, which BYU had done in the past, but the circumstance made this different.

BYU lost its first-ever Big 12 game last week at Kansas, and now it got its first win in front of its own fans against the Bearcats, taking Cincy down by the count of 35-27. It was hardly a flawless triumph, but it was a triumph, nonetheless. And the 63,000-plus spectators, at least the ones dressed out in royal blue, fully grasped the significance of the moment.

The aforementioned Cougar fans had been waiting for this situation for what seemed like forever, football forever. That’s what a century of playing on the outside looking in, either as a part of leagues that were seen as substandard, regardless of their configuration, or as an independent, as a team with everything to prove, a team no power league wanted, will do to a fan base.

It’ll make it edgy and eager, anxious and angry.

A century of dragging anchor over an extended period — until You-Know-Who showed up and transformed the program, eventually winning a national championship — and then dragging anchor still as college football seemed to want to hold animosity toward the interlopers who sneaked in and, during one crazy season so many years ago, stole its prize possession by beating a bunch of nobodies.

… So, where were we?

Oh, yeah, those first 29 minutes, when the past was where it belonged on Friday night — in the past, even as the future of the college game is about as uncertain as it’s ever been with all kinds of guesses flying hither and thither regarding what kind of insanity will come next in the seasons ahead.

Sandwiched, then, between those two slabs of time, BYU football full-on belonged against the Bearcats. It had no reason, whatever a favorable outcome looked like, to have to justify its existence with the heavy swing of an insecure hammer, to prop itself up, on account of the fact that no one would believe that a victory was as legitimate as the numbers on the scoreboard seemed to indicate. All the dancing in a hall of mirrors was done, most of it anyway.

And that felt good for the home crowd, even if those initial 29 minutes left plenty to grunt and grumble about, quite a bit to doubt.

For instance, the BYU offense early on appeared intent on showing an ESPN audience that it had no business playing in the Big 12, that it actually belonged in the Mountain West or who knows, the Ivy League. It did so by repeatedly disemboweling itself. Sorry, that’s kind of gross. But so was the attack.

As Kalani Sitake put it, “We were doing nothing offensively.”

The Cougars couldn’t run or throw the ball, not with any consistency or efficiency, really not at all. Up until 44 seconds remained in the second quarter, Kedon Slovis completed one of seven passes.

The whole affair looked dismal.

A defensive touchdown, which came on a pick-6 by cornerback Jakob Robinson — “The only highlight we had,” Sitake said — was all the scoring the Cougars could manage, as Cincinnati took a 10-7 lead.

Then, everything changed. Not everything, but enough. “We did enough to win the game,” said Sitake. Enough for BYU not to owe an apology for its performance.

On attack, the Cougars went throttle up, scoring touchdowns on four of five drives. Slovis suddenly looked the part of an authentic Cougar quarterback. LJ Martin looked like a legitimate running back. The offensive line did its job, the receivers were open targets. And the defense put up adequate resistance, although it yielded nearly 500 yards.

“We have to find ways to get off the field,” Sitake correctly said.

And for the offense to stay on it.

Either way, the Cougars eventually conjured adequate amounts of their own success and, further, took what Cincinnati gave them, including a fumbled punt in the red zone at the end of the third quarter. They seized the game and controlled it and its outcome throughout the game’s back half.

There’s yet much for BYU to improve upon. “We can play better,” said Sitake.

It beat the Bearcats, it took its first Big 12 win against a Big 12 team that now has lost three straight, and that skid includes a loss to Miami of Ohio.

After a bye week, the Cougars will engage again, attempting to establish themselves as a genuine threat in an environment — in a P5, a P4, a P3, whatever it now is or what it will be moving forward — unlike anything they have faced heretofore. It’s an ascent through an upward arc that is a challenge, an errand for the determined and the resilient. Acclimating to facing difficult opponents, all competing for the same trophy, week after week, finding enough frontline and backup talent, enough focus and resolve to successfully conquer the challenge is a call for the patient.

That’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation. A reasonable one at that.

“It’s hard to win in the Big 12,” Sitake said.

But BYU and its coach, as of last week and this one, now belong. They’re part of the club. The view, the climb no longer from the outside, rather from the inside, is one the Cougars and their bluer-than-blue fans will take. It’s been a long time coming.