I question the narrative from some that we won because of a series of flukes and that diminishes our victory or means we aren't a clearly improved team from last year.

Let's take a look at the "flukes."

First, the fumble and scoop and score. Now fumbles are difficult to force, and are by nature, unpredictable. However, if you play with intensity and tackle with sound technique you are bound to force at least a few fumbles. Kelly did just that and made a great hit on the RB. The ball took a fortunate bounce that allowed a scoop and score, but given how many of our players were in the area, we had good odds of at least recovering the fumble. If we only recovered the ball and not scored, it is highly likely we score a touchdown on offense anyway. We scored TDs on all our short fields. Even if we went 3 and out, we still get a field goal. So, at worst, take 4 points of the board. BYU wins 34-9.

Next Batty's pick. We called a well timed corner blitz that forced their QB to rush his throw on the screen and over throw and Batty made a great catch. This was a pick forced by BYU, not a fluke.

Taggart's pick. Our pressure forced the QB to step up into the pocket. Taggart did a great job staying disciplined in his zone and reading the QB's eyes and then made a great play on the ball. Was this a mistake by the KSU QB? Yes. If KSU had played a perfect game would we have lost? Well, yes. If you play perfectly you win. But no one plays perfectly and our discipline on this play allowed us to take advantage.

The punt return. Yeah, this one is a fluke. It just is. Kingston had bad positioning on the ball, made a bad decision to field it, and then got very lucky it took an easy bounce. Once he got the ball, everyone executed well blocking and Kingston ran his guts out (literally) but this was a lucky play. So take 7 points off. BYU wins 27-9.

And that's it. None of our offensive plays were flukes. The defense was solid all night and got multiple 4th down stops. Without the plays that had above average luck, we win comfortably. Even if you eliminate another one of our turnovers we still win by two scores.

The team played well. There is reason for optimism. Are there issues to keep working on? Yes, but this was a quality win.