Game Ball: Special Teams and Defense

For once, the turnover gods smiled upon the Cougars. After a historic night just six days ago when BYU gave up 7 turnovers, Bronco Mendenhall's defense forced two turnovers and the special teams picked up a muffed punt inside the blue zone.

Although the defense gave up a handful of big plays, they came up big when it counted, holding several long drives to field goal attempts, forcing a fumble after a long pass over the middle, and coming up with a timely interception on the three yard line near the end of the game. After his horrible performance, Jake Heaps owes every one of those guys a steak dinner.

But the special teams are who really showed up Friday night. Kickoffs consistently went to the

back of the endzone, punt coverage was great (resulting in the aforementioned muff), the field goal coverage team forced a miss, and, of course, Cody Hoffman ran back BYU's first kickoff return for a touchdown in thirteen years.

Questions, if not emergencies, remain on the offensive side of the ball, but this team can be proud of the defensive and special teams play on Friday night.