PROVO — Washington has always been a bit of a thorn in the side of the BYU football team, and it was apparent that was still the case Saturday in Provo.

The Huskies looked like an unstoppable force Saturday as they throttled BYU in every aspect of the game and won easily with a score of 45-19. Washington never looked concerned as they controlled both sides of the ball from the first snap.

The Cougars still have a lot of season ahead of them and still have a chance at a fairly good season, but Saturday exposed a lot of immaturity and issues that need to be addressed.

Here are three things we learned from BYU’s lopsided loss to Washington:

Discipline is an issue

Let’s start with discipline. The Cougars shot themselves in the foot over and over again by committing penalties at some really inopportune times. Granted, it’s never a great time to commit a foul, but it’s a little better to do it when a team is facing first-and-five from their own goal line and you gift them a first down at the 15. This is opposed to stopping them on a big third down to shift momentum and create an opportunity for your team just to have it ripped away for penalty that occurred nowhere near the play.

That was the story on multiple occasions Saturday. Multiple face-mask penalties by the BYU defense on the same drive kept the Husky offense on the field, and they eventually scored. Holding and false start penalties happened more often than first downs and the defense racked up personal foul after personal foul.

All of this resulted in the Cougars being flagged nine times for 80 yards. These are issues they're usually dealing with in Week 1 and 2 and should be fairly cleaned up by Week 4 after playing four Power-Five teams in a row. Discipline is an issue for the BYU Cougars.

This team may not being as resilient as we thought

Taking an SEC team on the road into overtime to walk away with a victory and then do it again a week later against a storied USC led one to believe BYU was resilient when faced with tough odds. But what about when things don’t seem to be going your way and you find yourself down three scores early in the second half?

This is what we got a taste of on Saturday, and it wasn’t pretty. After the BYU fumble that Washington returned for a touchdown, things looked dour; but the Cougars still had some fight in them. They went into halftime down 12 and optimism was coursing through Cougar nation for the second half.

Then, on the first drive out of halftime, Dax Milne fumbled as the offense was moving the ball; and three plays later, Washington scored to push the lead to 31-12. This is when the wheels came off.

After that, both the offense and defense, with the exception of Zach Wilson, looked defeated and slow — as if they knew there was no way they could win the game. After the Cougars got the ball back, they punted away just to give up a return for a touchdown.

It seemed like an insurmountable task to crawl out of a 31-12 hole, but BYU had time on the clock and an offense that seemed to be finding its groove, but difficulty and difficulty seemed to take its toll. And for most of the third quarter, and a majority of the fourth, it looked as if the home team threw in the towel and started thinking about what they were going to have for dinner.

A resilient team doesn’t just turn it on late when they’re down one score and find a way to push it to overtime or win the game. A resilient team digs deep when they’re in an impossible situation and find the willpower to continue to play as hard as possible and try to perform to the best of their ability.

This sounds pretty harsh when you remember these are a bunch of young men who are also juggling school to dig deep when a team has been having their way with you all day; but as a team and as an individual player, you need to believe you can always win and fight like you believe it. Giving up and going through the motions was a not a great look Saturday afternoon.

BYU might be OK without Ty’Son Williams

With the grad transfer done for the year, it's a big blow to the Cougar offense, but it’s also not the end of the world.

In Williams' absence, Lopini Katoa and Emmanuel Esukpa took the majority of the snaps in the back position. Katoa struggled at times with only 13 yards on five carries, but Esukpa looked strong as he ran for 49 yards on nine carries with a long of 23 yards and a touchdown.

The senior from Texas ran hard on Saturday when he got his chance. Missing Williams will be a big blow for the BYU offense, but it seems Esukpa could relieve a bit of that sting if he continues to play like he did Saturday against a very good Washington defense.

Bonus lesson we learned

BYU should stop scheduling Washington. It seems to just end in heartbreak or controversy. Anyone remember 1996?

Up next for the Cougars is a road game against Toledo on Sept. 28. The game will kick at 10 a.m. MDT. The game will only be broadcast on ESPN+. John has grown up around movies and annoys friends and family with his movie facts and knowledge. John also has a passion for sports and pretty much anything awesome and it just so happens that these are the three things he writes about.

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