BYU wide receiver Parker Kingston (11) runs the football in for a touchdown after a catch during the first half of an NCAA college football game against West Virginia, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, in Provo, Utah. (AP Photo/Tyler Tate)

On third and 10, BYU’s quarterback Bear Bachmeier dropped back and threw an incomplete pass. On the first drive of the game, West Virginia’s defense got a stop. The Cougars marched out the field goal unit to attempt a 48-yarder. The field goal missed wide left.

Last week, WVU’s defense only had one stop, which was a freebee interception that was pretty much a punt; the rest of the time, Utah scored with ease.

Against BYU, the defense showed improvement and looked more like the defense that’s been shown all season. The defense actually had stops.

Deep into WVU’s own territory, linebacker Chase Wilson read Bachmeier’s eyes and picked off a screen pass, halting the offense again.

“On screen plays, you kind of feel the O-line kind of half blocking you, and I felt that,” Wilson said. “Read the quarterback’s eyes, and the ball ended up there.”

Wilson’s interception was one of three turnovers forced by Zac Alley’s defense. The defense finally got some stops. However, the defense still let up 38 points and 516 yards of total offense. That’s a lot, but it just came down to a couple of big plays. BYU had seven plays go over 20 yards, and five of them over 30. The explosive plays have hurt the defense all year.

“I think you limit a lot of the explosives, this is an entirley different game,” Wilson said. “A lot of the touchdowns came off of explosives. You can’t play great defense if you give up explosives.”

A couple of the big plays weren’t deep field shots, too. Bachmeier hit Parker Kingston on a screen play and took off for a 54-yard touchdown. The ball was only in the air for two yards.

“They’ve ran it, but it wasn’t identical to the ones that we’ve seen,” Wilson said. “They have every screen in the book on third and long.”

Then, there was a slant that Chase Roberts caught, and he had open grass for 85 yards.

Wilson thinks it’s more of a technique issue than a scheme problem. Alley’s players always praise him for being smart, and most of the mistakes are when the players aren’t in the spots Alley tells them to be in.

“I don’t think they ran anything crazy tonight,” Wilson said. “Or pulled any new plays out of the playbook. At least for 20 minutes after the game. I think it was just a lack of applying the technique that we do in practice in the game.”

After another loss to BYU, WVU has a much-needed bye after a physical, exhausting stretch of games against some of the best schools in the Big 12. First, they’ll need to get healthy and rest. But, then it’ll be time to make changes because the season is spiraling, losing the last three games, all in the Big 12.

“As much as we need it off to rest, we need it to get better to prepare for the second half of the season,” Wilson said. “Everything that’s happened is in the past now. We can rewrite the whole rest of the season. We have a bunch of great opportunities ahead of us.”

There was one silver lining from the game. The defense didn’t give up. There were plenty of opportunities to do so, especially when the offense could get anything going. WVU ended the game forcing a punt and a fumble on two of the last three drives. There’s some positive going into the bye.

“I think we fought until the end,” Wilson said. “I don’t think that these guys give up. I don’t think your team gives up. It wasn’t perfect and it’s not perfect and we need to get closer to perfect. But, I can get behind a bunch of guys who aren’t going to quit on each other.”