Arizona State at BYU
Saturday, October 31, 2026
3:30 PM ET, LaVell Edwards Stadium, Provo
BYU is a 16.5-point favorite with a total of 48.5, and my play is BYU -16.5.
Twenty-eight. Thirty-six. Twenty-eight. Those are Arizona State’s margins of defeat against Texas A&M, Baylor and Texas Tech, the three best teams the Sun Devils have played. Every time this team has stepped up in class, it has been run out of the building. Now ASU heads to Provo to face a top-10 team coming off its first loss, and nobody knows who will play quarterback.
Kenny Dillingham is down to his third option, maybe
Cutter Boley started the season as the starter and ended up on the bench. Mikey Keene took over during the Texas Tech loss and was good against Kansas State until he had to be carried off with a leg injury late in the first half. Dillingham calls him “honestly questionable… He’s not doubtful.” If Keene can’t go, freshman Jake Fette makes his first start. He went 3-of-6 for 45 yards in relief and did lead two fourth-quarter touchdown drives, so credit where it’s due. Asking him to win his first start in Provo is a different job.
Whoever starts will be working behind a line that gives up sacks on 7.6 percent of dropbacks, which ranks in the bottom third of FBS. Boley’s dropbacks lost value on average all season. BYU’s pass defense allows 5.9 yards per attempt, 11th in the country. A young quarterback, a leaky line and a road crowd that hasn’t watched ASU win in Utah since 1994 make a lot of third-and-8s.
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BYU got embarrassed, and Sitake took it personally
The 39-31 double-overtime loss at UCF wasn’t a fluke result so much as a sloppy one. UCF piled up 463 yards and converted 9 of 16 third downs, and BYU missed a season-high 18 tackles. Kalani Sitake didn’t spin it. “We’re on the ground way too much in our tackling,” he said, before adding, “I’m really disappointed that showed up. We’ve got to fix it.” That’s a coach who spent the week making his defense hit people. Before UCF, this unit had allowed 24 points or fewer in every game.
The bigger issue in Orlando was the run game. Without LJ Martin, last year’s Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year, the Cougars couldn’t move the ball on the ground. Sitake says Martin is “getting really close.” Even if he sits again, Bear Bachmeier is the run game. Against FBS defenses, 61 percent of his carries count as successful runs, meaning they keep BYU ahead of the chains. That’s an absurd rate for anyone, let alone a quarterback. And Arizona State gives up 4.5 yards a carry, 90th nationally. Bachmeier also rarely takes a sack; BYU is fourth in FBS at keeping its quarterback clean.
The case against me
Three things scare me. First, BYU doesn’t usually blow out Power Four teams. It beat Arizona by 11, TCU by 7, Iowa State by 14 and Notre Dame by 4. Second, the Cougars play at Utah next Saturday and Utah sits a game ahead of them in the Big 12 standings, which makes this a classic lookahead spot. Third, star cornerback Evan Johnson is unlikely to play, and ASU’s receivers, Reed Harris and Omarion Miller, have combined for 1,190 yards. If Keene plays and finds Harris early, a backdoor cover is very much alive. BYU’s defense also barely forces turnovers, so it may not get many short fields.
I’ll live with it. Arizona State’s defense allows 33.7 points a game against FBS teams, 118th in the country, so BYU doesn’t need its defense to be great. It just needs to be good. A bounce-back week at home against a team that keeps collapsing on the road is exactly when a 6-1 ATS team gets its margin back.
Projected score: BYU 34, Arizona State 14. Bachmeier does the damage on the ground, and the Sun Devils’ quarterback shuffle never finds a rhythm.
The Pick: BYU -16.5
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