BYU's Loss to Utah State Ends Dream of Non-Power-Five Team Crashing the Playoff

For more than a month, BYU carried the banner for the little guy in the College Football Playoff.

The Cougars had cracked the Top 20. They were 4-0. They had solid wins over Texas and Virginia.

They had one of the most electric quarterbacks in the nation in junior Taysom Hill.

They were the only non-power-five team with a chance at crashing the Playoff party.

Friday night, those hopes and dreams came crashing down to earth in one fell swoop.

No. 18 BYU's 35-20 loss to in-state rival Utah State was doubly damaging. The Cougars lost for the first time this season. They also lost Hill for the rest of the season with a fractured left leg suffered late in the first half.

Rick Bowmer/Associated Press

As expected, the College Football Playoff will be the playground of the big boys, the best of the best in the power-five conferences. BYU was the only non-power-five team with any kind of legitimate shot at making a run; Marshall is unbeaten and could easily make a run through Conference USA undefeated, but the Thundering Herd is unlikely to even play a Top 25 team the rest of the way.

The most interesting group-of-five team is now East Carolina, and while the Pirates (victors over ACC foes North Carolina and Virginia Tech) are interesting to watch, they've also lost to South Carolina and have no shot at Playoff contention.

It's kind of a coincidence that BYU even had the chance to make a run this fall. The Cougars were the last "little guy" to win a national title.

Playing in the out-of-the-way Western Athletic Conference in 1984, BYU, led by quarterback Robbie Bosco, went 13-0 en route to a national title. The Cougars did so out of the spotlight. They didn't play a New Year's Day bowl, finishing up by beating Michigan in the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 21.

As an Independent, BYU is not even eligible for the group-of-five spot in the suite of games associated with the College Football Playoff that goes to the top non-power-five conference team.

Instead, the Cougars are all but locked into the inaugural Miami Beach Bowl against an American Athletic Conference foe.

That's a tough fate for a team that looked like a legit College Football Playoff party crasher.

The party ended when Hill suffered a fractured leg after a two-yard run late in the second quarter. Backup Christian Stewart led BYU to only six points the rest of the way, completing 10 of 29 passes for 172 yards. He also threw three picks in the second half. 

"Of course it's a big loss for us," wide receiver Jordan Leslie told reporters. "It knocks the wind out of us. He's a leader, he's a great athlete."

With games against Boise State, Central Florida and Cal left on the schedule, BYU would have been, at the very least, an interesting case for the College Football Playoff selection committee had it remained unbeaten.

Instead, the Playoff will be full of big names with no true underdog stories.

The Deseret News reported that Hill would undergo surgery Saturday morning and be sidelined three to four months. One night changed the trajectory of BYU's season dramatically, and that's tough for the Cougars, as well as fans of the underdog, to take.