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PROVO — In many ways, BYU had no business winning Friday night's Big 12 opener against Cincinnati in front of a raucous crowd of 63,834 fans.
The Bearcats (2-3, 0-2 Big 12) out-gained the Cougars 498 yards to 295, including 242 yards on the ground, and limited LJ Martin and BYU's struggling ground game to just 70 yards. BYU was just 4-of-11 on third-down conversions, and ran 31 fewer players.
Until the final drive of the first half, cornerback Jakob Robinson's 42-yard pick six was 4 more yards than the Cougars' entire offense.
So how did BYU fend off Emory Jones, who threw for 256 yards and three touchdowns, and the Bearcats in front of the largest crowd at LaVell Edwards Stadium since 2009?
It all came down to one line on the stat sheet: Cincinnati had two turnovers. The Cougars? None at all.
"Coach (Jay) Hill talks about it a lot; make sure we can back the offense up, if they're going to back us up, too," Robinson said after BYU regained the "turnover battle" after losing it in a 38-27 loss to Kansas. "We're always trying to get a takeaway every possession. It's just what they preach."
Robinson was as much a part of it as anyone.
The Orem High product scored the first points of the game, hauling in an interception and sprinting 42 yards to put the Cougars (4-1, 1-1 Big 12) up 7-0 early.
Ironically, Robinson wasn't supposed to be where he was to make that play. But fate intervened.
"It doesn't get better than that," he said. "We haven't had a touchdown on defense yet this year, so it helped a lot."
BYU linebacker Max Tooley, who had a career-high 16 tackles in the win, knows a thing or two about interceptions; he had three last year, with two touchdowns.
But Robinson's form was as fine as he's seen, the senior from Bountiful said while sitting nexting to his teammate after the game — even if he "actually played it wrong," Robinson admitted.
"Although I wasn't the guy doing it, staring up at that play and seeing Jakob do it was awesome," Tooley said. "Jakob's my guy; I love to see him taking after me."
Hearing this, Robinson smiled, then stared at Tooley.
"You had two last year, no?" he asked
"I guess we're setting the standing now," the linebacker retorted with a smile.
In a game where Cincinnati out-gained the Cougars 498 yards to 295 on offense, the key spark came on defense and special teams.
Kedon Slovis threw for 223 yards and two touchdowns, but perhaps most importantly, the fifth-year senior kept a clean bill in the interception column.
Chase Roberts caught six of Slovis' 13 passes for 131 yards and a score, including a 59-yard touchdown during a 21-3 run through the middle quarters to help pull away for good.
Martin added 66 yards on the ground and two touchdowns for the first time in the freshman's collegiate career.
But the most important thing any of those players did — and offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick will likely agree — was what they didn't do: keep the ball out of the Bearcats' hands, and earn a couple of takeaways themselves.
"You need those," BYU coach Kalani Sitake said. "Look at last week's game; that helped Kansas beat us. We want to win the turnover battle, and we want to take care of the football. We didn't do a good job of that last week, and we did a better job tonight."
Of course, there was also a big special-teams play that led to a turnover — with gunner-turned sparkplug Marcus McKenzie at the center of it.
After the offense stalled and threatened to go three-and-out with a minute left in the third quarter, the freshman cornerback and all-state sprinter from Pine View raced downfield on a punt return.
Following the path of Ryan Rehkow's 53-yard boomer, McKenzie tipped returner specialist Braden Smith. The play lost 10 yards, McKenzie dived for the loose ball — and long snapper Austin Riggs cascaded into the melee to recover the fumble at the Cincinnati 15-yard line.
Three plays later, Slovis found Roberts with a 5-yard touchdown pass that set up Martins from a yard out for his second touchdown of the night — and the Cougars took a 35-20 lead to open the fourth quarter that proved essential.
The defense did the rest, playing the kind of complementary football that the Cougars will need as they move forward into their first year in the Big 12, with an October that features trips to TCU and Texas around a home tilt with Texas Tech.
"As an offense," Roberts said, "it's such a special thing to see the defense go and do their thing."
