Provo • The game — and maybe even the season — turned in the span of six minutes.

BYU coach Kalani Sitake spent the last 10 months vowing 2024 would be different from last year’s collapse. But his team looked listless through the first 28 minutes on Saturday night.

It was the same story from 2023: BYU couldn’t run the ball, couldn’t stop the run and couldn’t get pressure on the quarterback. The Cougars looked like the same group that went 5-7 last year.

But then, the team that Sitake promised he’d built appeared out of nowhere. BYU scored four touchdowns in 5:59, blitzing the No. 13 team in the country to win 38-9.

Each play was more improbable than the last, as the Cougar defense created three turnovers and punt returner Parker Kingston broke off a 90-yard touchdown that should’ve never been.

By night’s end, the Cougars looked not only like a postseason team — now at 4-0 — but changed the perception of how BYU should be viewed in the Big 12 race.

“I think the question was, what kind of team was this?” Sitake said. “I think there were a lot of unknowns. But that is OK. Maybe people know a little more now. We are not going to surprise anyone anymore.”

Here are the stories that rapidly changed the Cougars’ trajectory, told through their eyes.

Don’t dive on it

Kansas State’s ground attack was dismantling BYU’s defense through the first chunk of the game. It quickly gobbled up over 120 rushing yards. Four times the Wildcats broke loose for runs of 10-plus yards. And the Cougars looked to be in trouble when quarterback Avery Johnson broke free for 30 yards in the first quarter.

“Try to shut down the run, that was the game plan,” BYU defensive end Tyler Batty said.

But Sitake admitted, “I don’t think things started off great.”

So when the Wildcats got the ball back with two minutes left in the second quarter, up 6-3, they were more than happy to hand the ball off and test their luck.

Then defensive coordinator Jay Hill sent his most trusted playmaker, Jack Kelly, to close in on running back DJ Giddens. As Giddens spun away, Kelly knocked the ball out and it popped straight up in the air.

Batty converged in pursuit. True freshman Tommy Prassas had the free angle.

“I was right there. Scraping over to the ball and just seeing it pop out,” Batty said. “There are like three or four of us right there. And I was running behind Tommy as fast as I could and I’m yelling, ‘Pick it up! Pick it up!’ as loud as I can. Because typically when the ball comes out, you dive on it.”

He continued, “I don’t even think he heard me because the stadium was so loud. But I was yelling to pick up the ball and he scooped it and got the right blocks.”

Prassas’ 30-yard touchdown return gave BYU its first lead, 10-6.

“When we punched that ball out and Tommy Prassas picks it up to the end zone, we can’t even hear,” linebacker Harrison Taggart said. “I was running down with Jack Kelly to the end zone and we are 6 inches apart and we can’t even hear each other.”

The Batty wrinkle

If Prassas’ play was the warm-up, what happened next should have sent the true signal that Kansas State was dealing with an avalanche of oddities.

Kansas State got the ball back and could have kneeled it out to end the half. It was getting the ball back in the second half anyway.

Instead, head coach Chris Kleinman decided to throw. And Hill countered with his best pressure of the night.

Hill rushed cornerback Jakob Robinson to get to Johnson. The quarterback had barely been touched all game. So when he saw Robinson, he stepped up late in the pocket and tried to effort a pass to his running back a few yards away.

Batty was there waiting. The edge rusher snuck back in coverage rather than go at Johnson, a wrinkle from Hill.

“We were in a little bit of pressure,” Batty said. “I’m dropping just to the shallow-third of the field, really [covering] that running back. Just watching, eyes on him. I see [Johnson] step out [of the pocket] and see it’s a screen. Pressure got there, the quarterback didn’t throw a very accurate pass. It just ended up in my lap. That was about that.”

BYU scored off the mistake, a 23-yard touchdown to Chase Roberts. BYU went into the half up 17-6 on a completely avoidable play.

Batty had never recorded an interception in his life, on any level of football, before that.

“I’ve been dropping in coverage my entire career here at BYU, man,’ Batty said. “So to finally get it ...”

Taggart waits

Kansas State had its chances to climb back into the game. Out of the half, it got the ball back and immediately broke off a 30-yard run by Giddens.

Momentum was turning, right?

No, the play was called back on a penalty and it set up the third turnover of the night.

Johnson dropped back on a third-and-long and thought he had a receiver coming across the middle. But Taggart was just sitting on it.

“It was a run-pass key. I read the pass and hopped over my guy who was running the bender,” Taggart said. “Saw Avery Johnson get flushed in the pocket. And that arm comes off the ball, oof. That’s exciting. Made the catch finally and ran back down the sidelines.”

BYU got the ball back at the 27 and finished it off with a Darius Lassiter touchdown. Kansas State was on the ropes at 24-6. But the final blow was yet to happen.

A mistake that should’ve never happened

The funny part about the most memorable play of the night was it never should’ve happened.

BYU forced a three-and-out after the Taggart interception. Kansas State was punting and returner Parker Kingston was going to fair catch.

But a disaster nearly ensued.

The Wildcats kick landed at about the 23-yard line and Kingston misjudged it. As he attempted to field the ball, he muffed the punt and had to run backward to the 2-yard line to recover it. BYU was in a safe return, meaning everyone around him thought he’d fair catch it too.

“I was thinking he was going to fair catch it,” linebacker Isaiah Glasker said. “But I turn around and [the ball] hit the ground and I was trying to find the first guy I could block.”

Kingston scooped up the ball, ran parallel with the end zone to the opposite side of the field, and then turned the corner, sprinting 90 yards for the touchdown. He ran right into the white-out student section.

“Probably like a 150-yard return,” Batty said.

Kingston dropped the ball just as he crossed the goal line, prompting an official review. Meanwhile, Kingston stumbled to the sidelines and threw up on national television.

The Wildcats were surely sick, too, after watching a 6-3 game turn into a 31-6 rout.

”I saw a mistake, and then I saw a mistake made right,” Sitake joked. “I’d like to see that we can block for him without the drama. So I don’t know if he misjudged it or whatever. We can laugh about it now.”

Taggart might have articulated it the best, “Had me on the edge of my seat. I was like, ‘Ohhh, no.’ And then you are finally cheering. Man, it is a lot of fun.”

And now BYU is 4-0. It is squarely in the Big 12 hunt. A year ago, this wasn’t possible. But in six minutes, after an unlikely series of events, the Cougars are right where they promised to be.

“It was probably the loudest LaVell’s ever been,” Batty said. “We just want to let people know who we are. This is who BYU is. This is how we play. It was a whirlwind. Guys just building off momentum. It was opportunities and guys were just grabbing it and running with it.”