This is the Depth Dossier: the BYU Cougars, Week 7.

BYU's quarterback did something Steve Young never even pulled off in a Holiday Bowl, and it's a big reason the Cougars survived their own meltdown to beat Notre Dame, 28 to 24.

Let's start with the broad strokes. BYU moved to six and oh, but they had to survive themselves to do it. The Cougars built a 21 to 10 halftime lead behind a brilliant first half from quarterback Bear Bachmeier, then went ice cold and let Notre Dame rip off fourteen unanswered points to take the lead. Bachmeier answered right back, leading a 55-yard game-winning drive that ended with a touchdown catch from tight end Walker Lyons with a minute forty-seven left. Then the defense slammed the door with a goal-line stand as time expired. Running back Preston Rex chipped in 66 steady yards on the ground, and a trick-play touchdown from wide receiver Kyler Kasper to Bachmeier himself was the moment everybody will remember.

Now, here's the stat that really stands out. Notre Dame came in with one of the best pressure rates in the country, pressuring quarterbacks on nearly 46 percent of dropbacks. BYU's offensive line held them to under 17 percent, and neither team recorded a single sack all night. That's about as rare as it gets in a top-ten matchup, and it's exactly why BYU's first-half game plan worked as well as it did.

And then there's Bachmeier's stat line itself. He threw for 224 yards and a touchdown, ran for 45 yards and two more scores, and caught a 15-yard touchdown off a backward pass from Kasper. A passing, rushing and receiving touchdown in the same game, against a ranked opponent. No quarterback in major college football had done that in 30 years. The last BYU quarterback to pull it off was Steve Young, back in the 1983 Holiday Bowl.

The strangest sequence of the night, though, belonged to Notre Dame. Driving for what looked like a sure touchdown with no timeouts left before half, quarterback CJ Carr tried to spike the ball to stop the clock and fumbled it instead. BYU linebacker Isaiah Glasker scooped it up, and what should have been a one-score game turned into an eleven-point cushion. Notre Dame's head coach, Marcus Freeman, said afterward he'd never seen anything like it.

Of course, BYU nearly gave it all back. After piling up 230 yards and 21 points in the first half, the offense managed just 37 yards and three first downs over the next quarter and change, going scoreless while Notre Dame scored fourteen straight. Rex kept chipping away on the ground, but the passing game that had carved up the Irish early just disappeared until that final drive.

Switching over to the depth chart, there are a couple of injuries worth watching. Cornerback Jayven Williams left the game and was replaced by Leach. Cornerback Therrian Alexander also left, with an upper body injury, after already seeing his practice-week workload trimmed. His status heading into next week is worth tracking. Filling that gap, defensive back Raider Damuni climbed up to about three-quarters of the defensive snaps, and he looks like the guy BYU leans on if either corner is limited.

Up front, the defensive line kept getting deeper. Keanu Tanuvasa and Bodie Schoonover both moved up to around two-thirds of the snaps, Nusi Taumoepeau climbed to about half, and several other linemen grew their roles too. That group is expanding by the week, not just rotating the same guys.

Linebacker trimmed the other direction. Cade Uluave dropped to around four-fifths of the snaps, while a few others fell into more limited, rotational roles. In the secondary, outside of the injury situation, a couple of defensive backs also saw their roles shrink.

On offense, nothing changed on paper, but after a night like that, Bachmeier and Rex are clearly the two names carrying this team forward.

This was the depth dossier. For everything college football, be it depth charts, data or dossiers, head over to C F B Depth dot com. We will be back next week. This was an AI-generated podcast from content developed by real human beings passionate about college football.