By Dallin Turner
OXFORD, Miss. — One of the reasons the BYU football team went independent was to gain greater exposure and tell its story to a wider audience.
On Friday, the Cougars held a fireside in a church building packed with more than 1,000 people. Several football players told stories from their full-time LDS missions and coach Bronco Mendenhall explained that football isn’t everything for this team.
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Linebacker Kyle Van Noy, who forced the game-winning fumble recovery and took it in for a touchdown, saw the game as a great opportunity for BYU to spread its message.
“It’s just good to do it on national TV and tell everyone our story,” he said. “Everyone one of us has a different story on the team, but you combine all our stories together and it creates one big one.”
Van Noy certainly has a story to tell after Saturday’s game.
With the Cougars trailing 13-7 with a little more than five minutes left, the Rebels found themselves pinned at their own 21-yard line, facing a third-and-27. Quarterback Zack Stoudt dropped back to attempt a long pass, but was soon caught by Van Noy.
“I kind of just came and chopped down at the ball,” Van Noy explained. “And it happened to come out and bounced off his thigh.”
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“Pick it up!” Van Noy laughed. “It’s not panic — it’s adrenaline to scrap for the ball. … I just got lucky.”
Van Noy’s touchdown provided some much-needed scoring for the Cougars, who had difficulty moving the ball at times, especially in the first half. During two quarters of play, BYU couldn’t even put the ball in field goal range, and went into halftime with a 3-0 deficit.
“You can’t take away what Ole Miss did defensively,” said BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall. “We contributed by not having as clean of play as we would have liked. That kept some scores off the board. It shows us that our execution can and needs to improve going into next week.”
The third quarter started a little better for BYU, until Ole Miss defensive back Charles Sawyer intercepted the ball at the 4-yard line and returned it all the way back for a touchdown.
“We made some mistakes,” said BYU quarterback Jake Heaps. “You look at my turnover, my pick-six. … You can’t have those kinds of turnovers when we’re driving down like that.”
It wasn’t until the fourth quarter, after Ole Miss added another field goal, when BYU was able to put together a successful drive. With 9:52 left in the game, Heaps found Ross Apo for a 19-yard touchdown pass to make the score 13-7.
“We came together when it mattered at the end of the fourth quarter,” Heaps said. “We put it together, and I’m proud of our team.”
After that, it was up to the BYU defense.
The defense not only held the Rebels to just two field goals, but also limited the offense to 208 yards of total offense. Part of this may be attributed to the Rebels’ top two rushers, Brandon Bolden and Enrique Davis, leaving the game with injuries, and the questions at quarterback for Ole Miss.
Barry Brunetti got the start, but only had four passing yards and 13 rushing yards before being replaced by Stoudt, who finished the game with 140 passing yards.
Although Stoudt did play better than Brunetti, he committed the game-costing fumble that Van Noy recovered.
“At a critical time, [Van Noy] made a critical play to help us win the football game,” Mendenhall said. “That’s how you have consistency in terms of wins and success.”
Now BYU can focus on continuing to tell its story to a national audience. Next on the schedule for the Cougars is a game at Texas that will be on ESPN2.
