Postgame Notes & Quotes – at Liberty

The following notes and quotes are from BYU's 41-14 loss at Liberty on Saturday, Oct. 22 at Williams Stadium. 

ALUMNI FLAGS: Dylan Collie (WR, 2018)
AMERICAN FLAG: Tanner Wall (WR)
STATE FLAG: Ben Ward (OL)
TEAM FLAG: Korbyn Green (DB), Carter Krupp (DB)
SERIES RESULTS: 1-0
Attendance: 24,012 (Stadium record)

TEAM NOTES
Heads or Tails
BYU did not win the toss for the seventh time in eight games this year

100-yard club
BYU had another 100-yard receiver with Puka Nacua. The Cougars have had a 100-yard receiver in three consecutive games (Nacua 141/Epps 125 vs. Arkansas, Epps 100 vs. Notre Dame).

150 games
BYU played its 150th game as an independent program. The Cougars are 95-55 over their 150 games for a winning percentage of .633.  

PLAYER NOTES
Jaren Hall
Hall threw two touchdown passes in the game. He has thrown at least one touchdown pass in every game this year, in 12 consecutive starts and in 17 of his last 18 starts. He has thrown multiple touchdown passes in 7 of 8 games this season and 11 of his last 12 games.

Puka Nacua
Nacua had a 46-yard touchdown reception, his longest reception of the season. He had 98 yards in the first half, the second-most he has had in a half in his career. He had 120 in the first half against Idaho State last season. Nacua finished the game with seven receptions for 114 yards.

Talan Alfrey
Safety Talan Alfrey had his first career interception to set up BYU’s second score of the first quarter. He returned it 21 yards. He finished with four total tackles.

Isaac Rex
Rex caught his third touchdown of the year and 18th of his career in the first quarter. It moved him into a tie with John VanDerWouden for 11th in career touchdown receptions at BYU. He finished with two receptions for 38 yards.

Notable career highs/career firsts
Interception: Talan Alfrey (21 yards)
Fumble recovery: Caden Haws (third quarter)
 

POSTGAME QUOTES

BYU Head Coach Kalani Sitake

Overall thoughts on the game…

I am obviously disappointed in our performance. Congratulations to Liberty. I thought they played a great game, and obviously we can give our game a team loss. We did not do anything in three phases to really gain the favor of the game. Special teams, defense, and offense definitely lost this game, but I think Liberty is a lot better than people think. I did not take them lightly. I know a lot of people in college football probably do. I know that Coach Freeze is a great coach, and those guys played some inspired football. Their only loss is to Wake Forest. They only lost by one because they went for two. This team is a really good team and they played really well.

To be up 14-3 then have 38 unanswered points was shocking for us, but we just must fight through this. This is some adversity that we are going through. This is a fight or flight moment, and I only know one way. We need to work hard, fight through this and make sure we have the right guys with us to go all the way. We must look forward to next week. We have a game at home. Congratulations again to Liberty, but we definitely have some things we have to fix as a team. That’s my job. I look forward to battling through this and playing our game next Friday. We have a short week, so we obviously have to travel back home from being in the Eastern time zone. I love our boys, our team and our program. It is going to be a true test now for all of us where we are right now. We have played really great ball earlier this season, and we have to find a way to get back to it. I am looking forward to working hard and getting there.
 

Liberty Head Coach Hugh Freeze

Overall thoughts on the game…

First, I love BYU and what they stand for. I love their coach. I love the way they play the game. Kalani (Sitake) and I texted this morning. What a great honor it is to compete and show the world that we can be different universities. I respect him and his players. They’re going through a hard stretch. I hate that for them and hate if they were offended in any way by our excitement from our students and everyone. I hope that’s not the case. The vision that Dr. Falwell cast many decades ago, to be able to walk in that today and to see the stadium full, the excitement around campus today.

To our fans, what an incredible atmosphere. To see them so ecstatic having the time they had brings me great joy. I’ve gotten to experience that twice before, and it never gets old. I just think it was a big night. Our players, man did they fight. ... Our kids had a great game, great plan, great execution of it. I’ve been holding us back some offensively, as you saw. Maybe I shouldn’t do that and make some of these other games quite as interesting. Really it came down to JB being a consistent quarterback tonight, using his legs when he needed to, his check-downs when he needed to. It’s a big night. ... I just told them, point blank, this is the biggest game in school history.