When it comes to playing true freshmen quarterbacks, seeing is believing. After 10 games of watching Bear Bachmeier put No. 11 BYU in contention for the Big 12 championship game, former Cougar Brandon Doman is a converted soul. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor a freshman to do what he\u2019s doing \u2014 I\u2019ve seen enough football in my life and in August I questioned whether or not he was capable of doing it,\u201d Doman told the \u201cY\u2019s Guys\u201d livestream show. \u201cBut kudos to the coaching staff. They knew him, they recruited him, they had enough background to know who this young man is and what he\u2019s all about.\u201d <\/p>\n
Doman went 14-2 as a starting quarterback at BYU (2000-01) and he was selected in the fifth round of the 2002 NFL draft by San Francisco. He returned to the Cougars as the quarterback\u2019s coach (2005-10) and worked with 11,000-yard passers John Beck and Max Hall before being elevated to offensive coordinator (2011-12) when his signal callers were Jake Heaps and Riley Nelson.<\/p>\n
Doman knows his stuff and when he sees Bachmeier, he sees a special talent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s so impressive. Just the grit, the stick-to-itiveness, the intellectual capacity that he has to manage college football at his age and the mature manner in which he does it \u2014 that is really rare. It\u2019s not very common and he\u2019s uncommon,\u201d Doman said. \u201cBYU is lucky to have him on their team. Now I know why they picked him. They picked the right guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Big 12 honored Bachmeier for his performance at Cincinnati by naming the 6-foot-2, 230-pound surprise story from Murrieta, California, as the Big 12 Freshman of the Week \u2014 for the sixth time.<\/p>\n
Staying healthy<\/p>\n
BYU is contending in the Big 12 for a second consecutive season with a combined 21-3 record. There have been blowouts and nailbiters and through them all, the Cougars have remained mostly healthy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey still have some weak spots in that depth chart that they are still developing,\u201d Doman said. \u201cBut to be able to maintain reasonably good health and maintain a quarterback that can finish the season that is playing the way these two quarterbacks have played the last two years is remarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even as the quarterbacks combine for a risky 1,061 yards rushing, 17 touchdowns \u2014 and a bevy of bruises, former starter Jake Retzlaff (11-2) didn\u2019t miss any playing time last season and Bachmeier (10-1) has made every start in 2025.<\/p>\n
Jay Hill factor<\/p>\n
BYU\u2019s defense enters Saturday\u2019s game against UCF (11 a.m., ESPN2) ranked No. 2 in the Big 12 in both scoring defense and total defense and No. 1 in red-zone defense. The Cougars also have 38 interceptions over the last two seasons, including 16 in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cJay Hill (defensive coordinator) and that defense has been unbelievable. The fact that he\u2019s been able to put back-to-back seasons like this, the turnover margin, the takeaways,\u201d said Doman. \u201cThere have been so many positive things that have happened, it\u2019s now enhancing their ability to recruit, so their depth chart is going to continue to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lot to prove<\/p>\n
The Cougars (10-1, 7-1) arrive at Thanksgiving with everything on the table. A win over the Knights (5-6, 2-6) will clinch a date in the Big 12 championship game on Dec. 6 in Arlington, Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s there for the taking. You watch Kalani and the way he is leading this team. I think their mindset is right. I think we\u2019ll see a good, solid football team on Saturday,\u201d Doman said. \u201cThey have a lot to prove. No one believes in them.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one knows how it feels to be discredited more than Doman. Hours after his 10th-ranked Cougars won at Mississippi State in 2001 to improve to 10-0, the Bowl Championship Series told BYU they were no longer under consideration for their big money bowls.<\/p>\n
Times have changed. BYU has changed. The Cougars even belong to a Power Four conference, but Doman contends BYU\u2019s lack of national respect remains blatantly obvious.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no reason for them to be overconfident right now because all the pundits out there don\u2019t want to believe in them anyways. They already want to write them off,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, they have everything in the world to play for, and they need to play like that on Saturday and put themselves in the championship game.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv\/ESPN+. He co-hosts \u201cY\u2019s Guys\u201d at ysguys.com and is the author of the children\u2019s book \u201cC is for Cougar,\u201d available at deseretbook.com. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to playing true freshmen quarterbacks, seeing is believing. After 10 games of watching Bear Bachmeier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,3125,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-313806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-news-feed-local","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}