Coastal Carolina comes out on top in Mullets vs. Mormons matchup | Yahoo Sports College Podcast
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Pete Thamel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde discuss Coastal Carolina’s 22-17 win over BYU in one of the best games of the year.
Video Transcript
[MUTED CHEERING]
DAN WETZEL: This deep into the season, and we get a special treat, a phrase never before uttered in the history of the English language. Mormons verse Mullets.
[LAUGHTER]
They drove a bus all the way from Provo, their equipment truck, to Conway, South Carolina. Fantastic game, BYU-Coastal Carolina. Coastal wins 22-17 on an incredible tackle at the 1-yard line. Terrific game.
We'll get to it quickly. Pat, your thoughts on the Mormons verse Mullets, which the Mullets pulled out there?
PAT FORDE: Yeah. Thank you very, very much to both schools for, as I referred to it, this Tinder Date Classic, you know, for-- I don't know whether you swipe left or right, but whatever way BYU swiped to pick up the game, man, that was great because it was risky for both schools. Somebody's gonna lose an undefeated season.
And it's the kind of thing most coaches would just get immediately very uptight about. Oh my gosh, we haven't had time to prepare. Wait a minute, I don't know anything about this opponent. Wait, we're going to go 4,000 miles to the Atlantic Ocean and play this game? I mean, so BYU took it on.
And then, it absolutely lived up to what we had hoped. I mean, it was a really, really good game. And man, Zach Wilson kept slinging and darn near pulled this thing off in the end. I mean, it would have been 91 yards in 43 seconds with no timeouts.
Instead, they went 90. They got tackled at the 1. So fantastic moment that nobody saw coming, nobody expected, because it didn't even-- wasn't even gonna exist until Wednesday. And I'm really glad it happened.
PETE THAMEL: I enjoyed every minute of it. Just the programs are so different, right? You got a Sun Belt program that's running an evolved version of the option. And I say that as a compliment. I think, too often, in modern football, people view the option as some inferior attack.
And I credit Jamey Chadwell a lot, 'cause I feel like if you are running your quarterback, you are equalizing, like when Dan Mullen was running the quarterback at Mississippi State to help them catch up, when Gus Malzahn was doing it at Auburn, at least when he was doing it well. And everybody was like, oh, that's a gimmick offense. It's like, no, running the quarterback is how, in modern college football, you go from being picked last in the Sun Belt East to going and being a now top 15 team and capturing it. Like, that is a really important part of all this.
So Coastal had the ball for 38 minutes, essentially. And they scored on touchdown drives of 17 plays, 11 plays, and 13 plays. That is the way to beat an opponent that is probably more talented.
DAN WETZEL: Exciting game, no question, and you're right, there were two very different programs. I think there was some jokes about-- or it wasn't even jokes. It was, like, facts, like the-- 'cause there were fans in the stands there, some. And they serve beer there, and some of the Coastal fans were happy they were on the BYU sideline because they could-- there was no line at the beer stand.
PAT FORDE: No li-- [LAUGHS]
DAN WETZEL: What I liked about it is they played. And yes, there's this big risk. Well, we might not get a New Year's Six bid. Or we're not gonna get this or that.
They got so much more out of it than that traditional, conservative, take-no-chances bid. This was a lot more like how Bobby Bowden built up Florida State. Yeah, let's play, even if we lose. It reminded me a lot more of college basketball. And we lost, on Saturday, the 1 v. 2, Baylor-Gonzaga game.
PETE THAMEL: Yeah.
DAN WETZEL: And Gonzaga, to me, is this great example of "we'll play anybody," and over the course of years and years, we get a little bit better.
PETE THAMEL: Mm-hmm.
DAN WETZEL: And I know they're not-- you know, Coastal Carolina's is not gonna ri-- you know, it's not built this way in football. But you can get better. And you can get a lot of attention.
And your school got a lot of attention, and your team, and your recruit, everything. It was a great night for Coastal Carolina. It was also a great night for BYU.
[MUSIC PLAYING]