Provo • For BYU, every remaining regular-season game is a playoff game, a string of playoff games acting as an open freeway onramp to the Big 12 championship game. Win what’s left, the Cougars are in. Lose any of it, and … well, it gets murky.

If BYU wins out in the regular season, and another team around here does likewise … good lord, all hell could break loose in the mad scramble for claims of superiority and postseason opportunity. More on that — the juicy stuff — in a minute.

First, the immediate, important-but-less-significant matter at hand.

TCU on Saturday night at LaVell Edwards Stadium was the first of three remaining swinging doors for the Cougars to run and pass through. They managed to do both against the Horned Frogs, prevailing by the count of 44-13.

This game, as vital as it was, turned out to be the football equivalent of the Cougars hitting hard and then parking themselves on a Barcalounger and burrowing in. For them, it was a rare occurrence this season, a game all cozy, cushy and comfortable. They earned that comfort, playing well, taking control, leading from beginning to end, mostly by double digits, never really feeling duress or being threatened.

It was 10-0, 17-zip, 24-3, 37-13 and Kalani Sitake might as well have joined his team, executing his duties properly, then stretching out, punching up a pillow and taking a Saturday night nap. By the midway point of the fourth quarter, half the people in attendance could have — zzzzzzzz — joined him. A pick-6 by Tanner Wall, returned a scintillating, serpentining 68 yards for the score, in the closing minutes seemed to wake everybody up in time for the postgame celebration.

“Great game,” Sitake said afterward. “Glad that it all worked out. … It was a matter of us putting it together in all three phases. It was nice being in control of this one.”

He added, as he has after all of BYU’s nine victories in 10 tries thus far this season: “Not perfect, but we’ll take the win.”

It was as close to perfection as his team has come.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU Cougars wide receiver Parker Kingston (11) runs for a touchdown as BYU hosts TCU, NCAA football in Provo on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025.

If the Cougars had done what they’d done in most of their games, at least the better ones, they would have cooked this contest down to football’s most basic of elements, and likely won by a whisker. The offensive line would have attempted to grade road, and LJ Martin and Bear Bachmeier would have repeatedly tucked and run. BYU averaged 200 rushing yards per game coming in, including 5.2 yards per carry, with a total of 21 rushing touchdowns. And usually, using that approach, the Cougars squeaked on by.

The one thing BYU needed less than a thousand donkey kicks to the head here was a showing similar to what was put upon it last week by another team from Texas — Tech’s Red Raiders — that limited the Cougars to a mere 67 rushing yards in a 22-point loss, the season’s only defeat. Had that happened again, with few other options … uh, don’t even let your mind go to such a dark place.

So, yeah, the Cougars ran the ball, rolling up 105 yards in the first half, just 46 in the second, scoring three touchdowns on the ground. Seeming more like himself, after wincing and wandering through last week’s defeat in Lubbock with a protective brace on his dinged shoulder, Martin got 88 yards here, and Bachmeier ran for 59. Each rushed for a touchdown, along with Parker Kingston.

But there was something else heating up on Saturday night, something wacky and weird, something the man whose name is on the side of BYU’s stadium would have appreciated. What’s this … the forward pass? The version of ball LaVell Edwards built his and his school’s name on was utilized and useful against TCU.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU Cougars quarterback Bear Bachmeier (47) runs the ball as BYU hosts TCU, NCAA football in Provo on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025.

Bachmeier pleased the legend, from wherever he might have been watching, throwing for 239 yards in the initial half alone against TCU. By comparison, he passed for 188 yards in total against Texas Tech a week ago — even as the offense flopped on the ground. All told, the quarterback got just shy of 300 yards this time around, doing his work early and not having to do much of anything as the game wound down.

Sitake said after his team got its big lead, it went conservative and essentially “tried to end the game.” It was just the fourth game in which Bachmeier spun the ball for more than 200 yards, a vast improvement for a BYU pass attack that was ranked just 87th nationally, getting an average of 213 yards through the air. But TCU’s pass defense ranked even worse, sitting at 102nd, allowing 242 yards per outing.

BYU’s switch-up, then, was due, in part, to the Horned Frogs’ resistance, which was much better suited to slow the run, giving up an average of 124 rushing yards this season, with a mere six touchdowns on the ground.

“Offensively, I thought it was good to let Bear throw the ball,” said Sitake. “Open the playbook, mix in the run, too, but it was good to put it all together. That’s what we’re capable of doing. … We can do some really good things if we play clean football. … It was nice to use all the weapons that we have.”

One other consideration in this game leaned less toward 1930s smash-mouth, leather-helmeted, goldfish-swallowing, fur-coat-wearing football and more toward the modern game. TCU can pass the ball, ranking in the NCAA’s top ten in pass offense with an average of 303 yards, with 23 TDs. But against BYU, Horned Frogs QB Josh Hoover, one of college football’s top passers, walked away with 183 throw yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions.

One of the key aspects to TCU’s inability to effectively move the ball and then score was the Cougars’ defensive effort, particularly on third down. The Horned Frogs were 1 of 10 on third-down conversions. For its part, BYU was 6-for-12.

The Cougars conjured enough on both sides of the ball to gain that ninth win, their sixth victory in the Big 12 against their single defeat. As the score and the cadence of the scoring indicated, this was one of their most trouble-free triumphs. With Cincinnati’s loss to Arizona, that put the Cougars alone in second place in the Big 12, behind 7-1 Texas Tech.

Their playoff run now continues next week at Cincy and the following week at home against UCF. Two more wins and the Cougars will find themselves doing battle again — barring something basically beyond comprehension at this point — with the Techsters in the CCG.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU Cougars cornerback Therrian Alexander (1) and BYU Cougars safety Tanner Wall (28) celebrate an incomplete TCU pass as BYU hosts TCU, NCAA football in Provo on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025.

A lingering question, previously posed, is this: What happens if BYU, currently ranked 12th in the College Football Playoff poll, heads to the title game in Arlington, then loses on repeat to sixth-ranked Texas Tech, and 13th-ranked Utah, after crushing Baylor on Saturday, finishes with victories over Kansas State and Kansas? If the playoff committee were to invite a second Big 12 team after Tech to the CFP, would it be 11-2 BYU, fresh off a second loss to the mighty Red Raiders, if that’s what occurs, or 10-2 Utah, which under this scenario wouldn’t have suffered defeat since mid-October?

Hmm.

Who was that loss to, again?

Um, BYU.

The committee could cause a beastly and brutal, uncivilized and unrighteous war here among fan bases, either way.

A peace-promoting solution? An unlikely one: Invite three teams from the Big 12. The big dog — Texas Tech, and its two side hounds — You-Know-Who and You-Know-Who.

Make peace, not war.