PROVO, Utah, Sept. 1, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — The BYU Cougars’ football season got off to a roaring start Saturday night at LaVell Edwards Stadium with a 41-13 win over Southern Illinois.
Led by quarterback Jake Retzlaff’s career-best 348 yards and three touchdowns through the air, the Cougars rolled over the overmatched Salukis with 527 yards of total offense, including 179 on the ground.
Though it took the Cougars awhile to put the game on ice, thanks to a second-half scoring spree, they set the plate early with two first-quarter touchdowns.
The first score came on the 13-play opening drive, which included two fourth-down conversions. Running back Hinckley Ropati finished the march with a 1-yard TD plunge to score the first points of BYU’s 2024 season.
The Cougars’ second scoring drive of the opening quarter was the result of a pinpoint 57-yards toss to wide-open wide receiver Jojo Phillips, the second of his BYU career.
Yet while they showed promise early, the Cougars stumbled in the second quarter — first missing a field goal and then turning the ball over on downs in their next drive.
Giving up the ball gave Southern Illinois the opportunity to keep things interesting, with big plays by Salukis quarterback DJ Williams.
Down 14-0 in the second quarter, Williams engineered an eight-play scoring drive, featuring a 43-yard pass to receiver Keonetz Lewis. Williams followed up with a 4-yard run and SIU’s only score in the first half. The Salukis pooched the extra point, blunting an otherwise impressive drive.
With seconds left in the half, BYU kicker Will Ferrin got a second bite of the apple, connecting on a 50-yard field goal that gave BYU a 17-6 lead at halftime.
In the second half, BYU put the hammer down.
It started with a 7-yard TD pass from Retzlaff to running back LJ Martin capping a seven-play, 75-yard march that made the score 24-6.
The Cougars scored again on their next possession, capping a three-play, 39-yard drive with a 19-yard pass from Retzlaff to tight end Mata’ava Ta’ase to push the lead to 31-6.
With 4:19 left in the third-quarter, Salukis QB TJ Williams again showed his chops on a 75-yard drive that included a 38-yard TD romp. The gutsy play momentarily stunned the crowd of 63,712 fans who had packed LaVell Edwards Stadium, cutting the deficit to 31-13.
BYU cinched the win in the fourth quarter, as LJ Martin scampered into the end zone on a 1-yard run to finish up a five-play, 37-yard TD drive to extend the advantage to 38-13.
The Cougars then put an exclamation point on the season-opening win by kicking a 41-yard field goal with a little more than seven minutes left in the game.
While BYU was dominant throughout the contest, the missed field goal early and the inability to shut down some of the big plays by SIU’s veteran quarterback made it clear to coaches and fans alike that there is still work to be done.
“Glad we got the win,” BYU coach Kalani Sitake said in the postgame press conference. “It was good to play football again, and just excited to see these guys get on the field after, you know, after the offseason. …
“[I’m] really proud of the way they played this game, and it wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t even our best, but there’s some moments that we had some really good things going.”
Some of those standout moments, according to Sitaki, were on the defensive side of the ball. The Cougars had two sacks and seven tackles for loss, showing a significant improvement from last year’s season total of just 11 sacks.
Still, Sitaki said, there were missed opportunities that the team and coaches will work on after watching the game tape.
“The coach in me just wants to look at the missed opportunities that we had, because there’s a lot of them. I think we had opportunities to get some turnovers and and to get more sacks and more disruptive plays. I could think of a couple plays we’d like to have back,” he said.
The Illinois QB “just made some some great runs, and he can really get after it. I was impressed with his ability to run the ball, but I thought we tried to keep him crowded as much as possible. [It’s] just hard to do that against a really good athlete, but for the most part, I thought the defense was able to hold their own.”
Sitaki also credited BYU defensive coordinator and associate head coach Jay Hill for the defense’s improvement. Hill was back in the booth after being released from the hospital after treatment of a heart attack earlier in the week.
“Jay’s been getting these guys prepped. He’s been getting them ready for this, and I think it’s a good step for where we want to be as a defense overall. [We] saw a lot of freshmen getting opportunities to play and make and have an impact. That helps out too, but the guys buying into it and just having another year in the system, I think, makes it a lot easier. I mean, that goes for the entire team.”
