BYU’s playoff cushion got ripped away in Orlando.
A week after the Cougars surged to No. 2 in the polls with a 28-24 upset of No. 2 Notre Dame, they ran into a completely different kind of night on Saturday. UCF knocked off BYU 39-31 in double overtime at Acrisure Bounce House, a result that immediately put a dent in the Cougars’ College Football Playoff path.
ESPN’s Heather Dinich slotted BYU at No. 4 in her latest CFP projections, but the loss carries plenty of baggage for the Selection Committee to sort through.
"The loss to unranked, three-loss UCF is something that would stand out to the committee, although the members would also consider that it was in double overtime on the road after an emotional home win against Notre Dame. The twist is that BYU's loss is worse than Notre Dame's loss. Some committee members might be swayed more by whom the Cougars lost to than whom they beat, and that they didn't have much control in either game," Dinich wrote.
That’s the part that stings for BYU: the committee could end up caring more about Saturday night than last week’s signature win. UCF came into the matchup with losses to Pittsburgh, Houston and Oklahoma State, and the Golden Knights sit near the bottom of the Big 12 Conference. In other words, this was not the kind of defeat that helps a résumé.
Dinich also pointed out that last season’s final CFP spot came down to Miami and Notre Dame, a reminder that BYU could find itself in a similar squeeze if the losses start to weigh more than the wins.
The schedule doesn’t leave much room to exhale. BYU gets Arizona State in Week 9, then heads to Utah for a top-25 matchup that looms large for both teams’ College Football Playoff hopes.
In Other News...
UCFs Quarterback Picture Just Got Much More Interesting
The quarterback situation in Orlando has settled, at least for the moment, behind Keyone Jenkins. After UCFs upset of No. 2 BYU, Scott Frost named Jenkins the starter, rewarding a stretch in which the signal caller has posted consecutive games with more than 200 passing yards and multiple touchdowns while helping fuel the Knights recent surge.
Still, the picture is hardly static. Jenkins has earned the job with his playmaking and poise, but Alonza Barnett III is moving back toward availability, which keeps the conversation around the position very much alive. For a UCF offense that has found some rhythm, the next question is how long this momentum holds and how Frost manages the depth chart as the roster gets healthier. [Read more 🡒]
BYU Fans Have Every Reason To Be Furious After That Finish
The fallout from Saturdays BYU-UCF finish is still carrying beyond the game itself, with the Big 12 admitting there were officiating mistakes in recent college football games. For UCF, the broader issue is the same one that has been hanging over the sport all season: administrative errors can swing a game just as much as anything that happens between the lines, and this one landed in a spot where every detail mattered.
Rece Davis called out the growing number of those kinds of mistakes, saying the conference needs to clean them up, and it is hard to argue with the frustration around that kind of public correction. The BYU game also fits into a bigger pattern of controversial officiating decisions that have already drawn attention this fall, including an eye-catching Week 1 ruling in the Big Ten, which only adds to the sense that college footballs officiating standards are under the microscope again. [Read more 🡒]
Tyren Hornes May Have Changed UCFs Offense In One Night
Tyren Hornes entered the night as one of the more intriguing young pieces in UCFs receiver room, and he left it looking like the kind of freshman who can change how an offense is defended. In the upset of BYU, Hornes kept showing up at the biggest moments, giving the Knights a vertical threat and a reliable target when the game tightened late.
What stood out was not just the volume of his involvement, but how central he became to UCFs approach in a high-pressure setting. Since his recruitment, Hornes has carried the profile of a player with real impact potential, and this performance only sharpened the question of how much more the Knights can build around him as the season unfolds. [Read more 🡒]