Pirates of pain: East Carolina hands BYU 4th straight loss

PROVO — BYU's misery extended to unencourageable lengths Friday night in the cold October air of LaVell Edwards Stadium.

Andrew Conrad chipped a 33-yard field goal as time expired to help East Carolina extended BYU's misery with a 27-24 win Friday night.

Holton Ahlers completed 15-of-22 passes for 197 yards, and Keaton Mitchell ran for 176 yards and a touchdown to lead East Carolina (6-3).

Lopini Katoa ran for over 100 yards on the ground for the second time in his career, and the first since 2018, as the senior from American Fork compiled 116 yards and a touchdown in the Cougars' loss to the Pirates in front of an announced crowd of 55,525 fans.

It's the fourth consecutive loss for BYU (4-5), the longest since the ill-fated 2017 season that finished 4-9 and prompted sweeping changes on offense.

Credit where credit is due; East Carolina wanted their sixth win of the year more than BYU wanted its fifth, and when Conrad's squib kick hobbled over the crossbar with no time on the clock, the Pirates' sideline rushed the field and players picked up the 5-foot-11, 156-pound kicker ready to carry him off the field in triumph and glory.

For BYU, another opportunity to snap out of a dubious skid remained unfulfilled.

"East Carolina is a really good team. They're well coached, they played hard, and they were up to the challenge of coming out here and playing this game," BYU coach Kalani Sitake said. "Coach Houston is a really good coach. It was a hard-fought game, and they deserved to get the win. We didn't do enough."

Jaren Hall threw for 144 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 60 more yards, and Puka Nacua caught seven passes for 79 and a touchdown for BYU. But when the Cougars needed a score the most, the offense went silent.

BYU gave the ball back to East Carolina on three-straight possessions in the fourth quarter — two turnovers on downs and a punt. That gave Pirates quarterback Ahlers a chance at the win with 2:26 left in a 24-24 game.

The ECU veteran targeted Isaiah Winstead with a Hail Mary throw on fourth down in the final minute, but the incompletion drew a pass interference flag, which set up the Pirates' game-winning field goal.

The Cougars' offensive bugaboo during the skid also reared its ugly head again with an offense that converted just 6-of-13 third downs and were stopped on both fourth down attempts. That included a fourth-and-2 deep in ECU territory in the fourth quarter, where the Pirates stuffed backup running back Miles Davis to continue a second half that featured just 17 total points and three in the fourth quarter.

"As a wide receiver, that's the money down for us," said Nacua, who also ran for 22 yards on three carries. "It's our job to convert, or at least get to a reasonable fourth down. Also, going 0-for-2 on fourth downs was big, too. We don't go for it a lot on fourth down, and it comes back down to execution.

"Not bad play calls; it's stuff that we practiced during the week, it's just stuff we didn't execute on."

Obviously, that fourth-down call will be second-guessed, as will plenty of other decisions by the coaching staff, Sitake said after the game. The seventh-year coach prides himself on taking risks; and after building a career of limited punting and fewer field goals than touchdowns, the strategy has begun to bite Sitake in BYU's final year of independence.

Whether by play-calling or game management, it came back to a lack of execution, Sitake repeated.

"It seemed like third-and-short and fourth-and-short are our nemeses right now," he said. "If we aren't able to execute and convert those, we can't just keep going for it on fourth down all the time. That's my job as a head coach; I make those decisions. We're at a point now where we should be able to get those … and it came down to who had the ball at the end."

The Cougars kept pace with ECU well enough through a 17-17 halftime stalemate, even as the Pirates poured on 235 yards of offense to BYU's 208. Led by Mitchell, East Carolina ran for 227 yards on 36 carries, but the Cougars equally gashed the Pirates on the ground, with Katoa, Davis, Hall and Nacua averaging 5.8 yards per rush for 244 yards on the ground.

"We worked on it a lot this week in practice. We definitely wanted to establish the run game and pick it up from where it's been the last few weeks," said Katoa, whose offense played without running back Christopher Brooks and receivers Kody Epps and Gunner Romney. "I knew what was going to happen, Miles knew, we all knew. It was just a matter of running behind the big fellas. They played great, they worked hard; they have plays they want back, just like all of us do. But I love the big fellas up front."

A team that was determined to fight did just that, from the opening drive when Chaz Ah You and Ben Bywater combined on a tackle for loss to force ECU into a three-and-out early, to the final whistle where the Cougars stopped the Pirates, save for a pass interference penalty that led to the game-winning field goal.

There was plenty of improvement to be noted from a 41-14 loss at Liberty that led to an extension for Flames coach Hugh Freezes through the 2030 season. It just wasn't enough, and the pain continued Friday night.

"I think, overall, we improved from last week, especially," said defensive end Tyler Batty, who had two tackles, a tackle for loss and a quarterback hurry in the loss. "I'd say we have to keep building off that and keep getting better."

Bywater led the Cougars with 11 tackles, and Kaleb Hayes and Jakob Robinson each added seven. But when Ah You was escorted to the locker room in the first half wearing a walking boot after coming off the field clutching his ankle, things changed on defense.

The fight was there; Iit just wasn't enough.

"I'm proud of those guys who have stepped in, willing to do whatever it takes to help the team win," Batty said. "We just needed a couple more stops there, and it could've been different."

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