Jake Retzlaff engineered two fourth quarter scoring drives and Will Ferrin kicked a 44-yard field with four seconds remaining to keep No. 9 BYU’s unbeaten season alive with a 22-21 win over Utah on Saturday night.
The Cougars’ final drive was extended on a defensive holding penalty on fourth down when the largest crowd in Utah’s Rice-Eccles Stadium history (54,383) thought the game was over.
Retzlaff, who was 15 of 33 for 219 yards, passed for 30 yards to Chase Roberts and 12 yards to Darius Lassiter before Hinckley Ropati ran for 14 yards to get BYU (9-0, 6-0 Big 12) in position for Ferrin’s kick.
The Cougars remain the final undefeated team in the Big 12 and in prime position for a bid in the conference championship game.
Retzlaff scored on a 1-yard sneak with 12:35 remaining to cap a nine play, 95-yard drive and the first where they looked like the team that’s averaging more than 35 points a game. But the 2-point conversion was intercepted by Cam Calhoun to keep Utah (Utah 4-5, 1-5 Big 12) ahead 21-19.
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Utah’s Brandon Rose, who was the third-string quarterback coming into the season, got his first career start after Cam Rising was lost for the season and Isaac Wilson has struggled.
Rose ran twice for first downs and then completed his first positive pass of the game for a 20-yard touchdown to Brant Kuithe to complete a six play, 64-yard drive early in the second quarter. Kuithe added a 1-yard touchdown run out of the wildcat formation with 5:31 left before halftime but later left the game with a leg injury.
Capitalizing on Rose’s interception in the third quarter, Will Ferrin made his second of three field goals.
Rose was 12 for 21 for 112 yards but just 4 of 11 for 25 yards in the second half.
Utah’s Zemaiah Vaughn stopped Roberts for a 2-yard loss on a fourth-and-1 swing pass, which led to Rose’s 7-year touchdown pass to Micah Bernard to make it 21-10 at halftime.
Jakob Robinson’s first-quarter interception turned it into a 23-yard field goal by Ferrin.
In the second quarter, BYU’s Keelan Marion returned a kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown, his second of the season.
Utah had won nine in a row in the series before dropping the 2021 game 26-17 and now this one.
Takeaways
BYU: BYU’s offense only managed two field goals before coming alive in the fourth quarter. The Cougars mismanaged the clock by taking their final timeout too early and then a false start required a 10-second runoff which ended the first half when they were on the edge of field goal range.
Utah: Bernard, who has been Utah’s lone offensive bright spot before the breakout second quarter performance, had 17 carries for 78 yards and passed 2,000 career rushing yards. Rose was hot in the second quarter but the offense sputtered after that. The Utes have lost five in a row but have not lost any by more than 13 points.
Familiar foes
Five of BYU’s primary coaches played or coached at Utah and longtime Ute coach Kyle Whittingham played at BYU in the 1980s.
Up next
BYU hosts Kansas next Saturday night.
Utah plays at No. 21 Colorado next Saturday.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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