Week 6 – #10 BYU (5-0) @ #12 Sparty (3-1) – Sat, Oct 8, 2016 – Spartan Stadium – East Lansing, MI – ABC Gameday – 7:15 EST

Sparty opened the year by crushing Furman, then they had a bye to prepare for ND and went to Southbend and upset a top-10 Irish team. However, they laid an egg the next week and lost to Wisconsin in a tough battle due to some poor QB play.

Taysom is getting Heisman talk and there really is not a more dynamic player in college football. Dantonio is the 551st person to publicly pull out the “26 year old vs boys” card which draws a great quote from a normally soft-spoken Ty Detmer at an after-practice interview with Ivan Maisel of ESPN, “We’d welcome Coach D’antonio to send his future QB’s on 2 year breaks to foreign countries with no weightlifting, film or workouts of any kind and then subject them to three season-ending injuries and then he can come talk about what an ‘advantage’ Taysom has!” Despite his mobility, Taysom throws 16 passes in the first quarter alone! Ty says later that was at the suggestion of Taysom and Tanner once they watched film together on what Wisconsin did to Sparty to beat them. Short, quick routes, with a heavy dose of the RB’s right up the gut.

Thankfully this led to a grind-it-out TD drive culminated by Jamaal leaping over the pile from 1 yard out. Sparty however added their own TD a few drives later and this slugfest goes to halftime knotted at 7. We actually get our first taste with BOTH Taysom and Jamaal in the backfield…Tanner hands off to Taysom on the fly sweep for a gain of 6 and then, 4 plays later, Mangum checks back in for a little trickeration…Taysom motions out of the backfield, gets a backward pass from Tanner into the flat, Taysom stops, launches it to Trinnaman on a fly for a 55 yard gain where he’s pushed out at the Sparty 11 yard line. This leads to another JSwag TD run! Herbie can’t stop gushing about how this BYU team pulls for each other and are tough, talented winners.

Sparty adds a FG and then is poised to take the lead on a potential TD drive when Fred Warner shakes loose in the backfield and forces a key sack on 3rd and 5 from the BYU 15. The Cougars force another FG…to make it 14-13 after 3.

Taysom and BYU slow it down and try to pound it in the 4th as BYU tries to run time off the clock but this proves difficult with such a tough, physical Sparty team. He can’t, however, lead them to score and BYU fails to convert on 4th and short from the 32 instead of kick a FG. Sparty gets the ball looking for any score for the win…and BYU’s defense is put to the test. Even though Sparty is driving, Loleilei comes up with a key TFL that pushes them back to the 31 yard line and, like so many times before, an epic game in East Lansing is coming down to a long FG.

Controversy ensues when Sitaki calls a timeout just before snap…the players didn’t hear the whistle and the kick was good. Crowd erupts then boos when they realize what happened. 2nd try…the snap and hold are good…from 48 yards out…kick doinks off the right upright…NO GOOD. BYU wins epic 14-13 battle.

Player of the game – Tuiloma – 8 tackles, 3 TFL’s, 1 forced fumble and forcing himself to be double-teamed almost every single play.