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BOCA RATON, Fla. — BYU's final win of a mostly spectacular 11-1 season via a 49-23 win over UCF in the Boca Raton Bowl was won, marvelled and punctuated with a dominant offensive performance, a record-setting routine from a one-time Heisman Trophy dark horse in Zach Wilson who led the Cougars for 87 yards on five plays over the opening 1 minute, 49 seconds for a touchdown and never let up.
No one will take away the performance of Zach Wilson, the junior quarterback from Corner Canyon who cemented himself as a bonafide NFL prospect with 425 passing yards and three touchdowns against the Knights (6-4), leading No. 16 BYU to an 11-1 record, its first one-loss season with double-digit wins since 1996.
Yes, 2020 was a magical lot for BYU, and Wilson was waving the wand, yelling "abracadabra" and "presto-chango" and making the machine of the Cougars' offense hum.
But for one night in South Florida, when 6,000 fans crowded into the 30,000-seated FAU Stadium to witness a game that was projected to put up pinball numbers, with a projected over/under of up to 79 points in some parts of Southern Nevada, it wasn't Wilson's spectacular performance that set the tone.
It was the defense.
A defensive unit that was missing some of its top players — Chris Wilcox, George Udo and Tyler Batty all missed Tuesday night's game for a variety of reasons, among others — put in arguably the best performance of the season.
"Coming in, we felt very confident in our ability and the players we had," said senior safety Troy Warner, who had four tackles and a pass breakup. "We came out here with a sense of swagger, and just executed at a high level early in this game. That's a big tribute to the game plan coming in."
"The mentality each week is always to dominate, for them to score no points. We had some miscues early on, but I think overall, we were really assignment sound and just executed."
Before Tuesday night, UCF had survived 48 consecutive games without losing by 10 points or more — by far the nation's best such streak. BYU didn't just beat that streak, but crushed it. The Cougars went for the kill early, lead 21-0 after the first quarter, and never let the Knights off the mat.
Led by a hard-nosed effort from Keenan Pili (9 tackles), Isaiah Kaufusi (8 tackles), Payton Wilgar (7 tackles) and Max Tooley (5 tackles, 0.5 sacks, 2 QB hurries), the Cougars held a prolific UCF offense to just 411 yards, including 194 on the ground. That includes just 85 yards in the first quarter when BYU hamstrung rising star sophomore quarterback Dillon Gabriel through the air and clamped down on running back Greg McCrae on the ground.
BYU (11-1) made Gabriel look mortal — a fair challenge for the quarterback who entered Tuesday's game with 3,353 passing yards, the third-best mark in the nation and trailing only Florida's Kyle Trask and Alabama's Mac Jones.
"I thought we had a great game plan," said BYU coach Kalani Sitake, who helps put together that game plan with defensive coordinator Ilaisa Tuiaki. "We had a lot of disruptions that were made, but you have to give credit to Gabriel. He's athletic and got out for a few runs.
"I'm really proud of the defense. I would've taken 23 points if you had told me that in the beginning, and even so, I'm still frustrated with a few things. It didn't matter what the score was; we wanted our guys to keep playing."
After Wilson rode 173-yard rusher Tyler Allgeier downfield and scored from 15 yards out on the Cougars' opening drive, BYU wasted no time imposing its defensive will — even if it didn't count.
Freshman Micah Harper picked off Gabriel on the Knights' first offensive play from scrimmage. And even though the call was eventually overturned in favor of an incomplete pass, the damage was done. The Cougars forced a three-and-out, and BYU scored again, this time through Wilson's 36-yard strike to Isaac Rex. They then allowed just 30 yards on a 90-second drive before UCF punted again.
In all, the Knights ran just 19 plays for a net yardage of 71 yards in the first quarter, a 4-minute, 47-second time of possession that resulted in two punts, a turnover on downs, and a 21-0 deficit to start the second quarter. For UCF coach Josh Heupel, it was "the first time since I've been here" the Central Florida offense proved ineffective, at best.
"We were missing guys, but we've got to be able to win with the guys that are out there," Heupel said. "The guys that are out there have to be able to play at a championship level."
UCF pass-catcher Jaylon Robinson echoed his coach: "I would say we played a great defense, and they had a great game plan. But we just didn't execute the plays we needed to."
BYU looked for havoc but didn't always find it. The Cougars only had three tackles for loss, no sacks and maintained an equal "zero" in the turnover column to UCF.
But havoc doesn't always lead to a sack. It doesn't always force an interception.
Gabriel ran the ball six times for 31 yards, and while the athletic Hawaii product whose father was known as the Rainbow Warrior quarterback that beat Ty Detmer twice has flashed his athleticism on occasion, he's never run more than 12 times or for greater than 58 yards.
On Tuesday night, BYU took away some windows and made the prolific passer into a running quarterback.
"It was just special," said Kaufusi, who played with serious injuries, nicks and pains to put on one final show in a Cougar uniform. "We've got a special team here. To go out in that way, and in that fashion, to dominate that game, it was just special. Really proud of the guys. Proud of the team. We worked so hard for this, and to be able to execute and play at a high level like we did tonight, it's incredible. We knew we had a special team from the beginning, from all the adversity that we had faced, and I'm just really, really proud of our guys."
For as good as Wilson proved to be, the defense was, in many ways, his equal — a well-rounded performance fitting of a top-20 team, even if not played out on college football's big stage.
