BYU took one more step forward on Saturday night in doing something notable this season, something quality teams do, something great teams master: It fulfilled expectation.

OK, it did a little more than just that. It took care of its business all proper — outside of some seriously sloppy late play by backups who might not be all that great, who were probably loaded in too quickly — in a road game it was favored to win against Colorado State. The final count: 41-23.

That slop thrown up in the later stages concerned Kalani Sitake, but it made no difference in the outcome: “I didn’t like the way the game ended,” he said.

He did like the taste of victory.

The good parts are what the Cougars will have to show again and again through a schedule that often will present the opportunity to do so. There are a couple of exceptions, games that will require everything BYU can conjure, including perhaps, depending on whom and what you believe, Utah on the road and Notre Dame at home, maybe some others, as well.

The Rams are not the Utes, not the Irish. But they are not nobody, even though that’s not the way they looked a minute into this game, when LJ Martin bolted up and downfield for a long touchdown, giving BYU an easy early lead.

Martin was a mainstay on this night, the lead character in the pursuit of expectation. He blew it to high heavens, rushing, all told, for 176 yards and three touchdowns before taking the back half of the game off because of the large margin. The Cougars’ offensive line imposed its will, grading road over and through Colorado State’s front. Bear Bachmeier joined in on that party, throwing for 227 yards, also chucking a pick in the end zone, prior to resting through the fourth quarter.

A quick-but-short-lived problem for BYU, after its initial touchdown, was that Colorado State scored almost as casually on its first possession, on a TD pass drilled by quarterback Hauss Hejny, equalizing the score and, just as concerning for the Cougars, doing so as though it were NBD.

Most glaring on that drive was this: CSU’s offensive skill players had more speed than BYU’s defenders. It seemed at that point as though, unless the Cougars got better positioning out of that defense, it would be up to the BYU attack to make up for the difference going the other way. It did. But, as it happened, it didn’t have to, as the defensive starters tightened their resistance. Just a couple of plays later, BYU’s lead was recaptured, set up by a bomb from Bachmeier to Legend Glasker. Martin did the honors on a subsequent short TD blast into the end zone.

That advantage held and was extended, mainly on account of the fact that CSU’s defense got mauled by the combo-pack of Bachmeier passes and Martin runs, all of it made comfortable by the big’uns up front. A third Martin scoring run, after deft-touch Bachmeier throws to Glasker and Walker Lyons, jacked the first-quarter margin to 21-7.

Thereafter, the talented Hejny was tied to the bench due to a tweaked hamstring when he rolled right on an earlier incomplete throw. His replacement, K’saan Farrar, mostly struggled.

The top-line Cougars did not.

A field goal pushed their lead to 17 points, then came a Glasker touchdown, and from there, they rolled — until those starters were subbed out. By then, the competitive damage was done, the hurt inflicted.

Two long-ago, disparate interactions, not different in content but in settings, are indicative of what BYU’s overarching challenge is this season. One was an interview with quarterback Steve Sarkisian before the Cougars went 14-1 in 1996, one of their best results ever; the other was with Morgan Scalley in 2004, more than two decades before the former Ute safety and team captain became Utah’s head coach this season. They said essentially the same thing days before their teams started in on what they achieved, Scalley’s Utes going undefeated.

It seemed reasonable in both instances to assume that their teams would be exceptional in those years, and the expectations were rockets to ride. Each of those men stressed what turned out to be true. “We have to focus on every game, one at a time,” Scalley said, grinning at the cliché. Said Sarkisian: “We can’t take anything for granted. Can’t overlook anything or anyone.”

There it is. No wonder Sarkisian went on to coach at various stops, now at Texas, and Scalley transformed into … well, Scalley.

Unbeknownst to the Cougars, they, most of them, channeled both Sarkisian and Scalley on Saturday night. Enough to get what everyone expected — including themselves — and what they dialed in on to earn.