The final 2 minutes of BYU-Boise State were beautiful chaos

Boise State knocked off BYU 28-27 on Thursday night to remain undefeated and improve to 7-0. In order to get there, however, the Broncos had to survive a bizarre final two minutes that nearly featured a blocked field goal setting up a touchdown.

Let’s start about two hours after BYU’s fake punt from its own 5 on fourth-and-19.

Trailing 28-27, BYU got the ball back at its own 8-yard line with 2:03 to play in the game. The Cougars had two timeouts and only needed a field goal to win. The final drive started like a lot of final drives do. BYU methodically made its way down the field, creeping into field goal range.

After burning their final timeout on an ill-advised sack, the Cougars were faced with a 2nd-and-11 from the Boise State 40-yard line. Then Taysom Hill connected on a 13-yard completion to get the Cougars back in business.

Now with 15 seconds left and a fresh set of downs at the Boise State 27-yard line, the Cougars were in field goal range with time to move even closer. They opted against that. BYU instead spiked the ball on first down and ran out its field goal kicker.

Settling for a 44-yard try was questionable and it became even dicier when the Cougars committed a false start. Except! Boise State head coach Bryan Harsin called a time out to ice the kicker moments before the flags were thrown.

That gave BYU another shot at the 44-yarder. That shot was quickly rejected by the BSU defensive line.

Boise State celebrated the game-clinching block. Only it wasn’t game-clinching. The kick attempt didn’t pass the line of scrimmage and the Cougars recovered the ball. Because they opted to kick on second down, they retained possession.

Now, BYU had a 3rd-and-25 from the BSU 42-yard line with less than 10 seconds left. An attempt to get back into field goal range fell incomplete. But, the Cougars had a chance at a final Hail Mary attempt. They’ve had plenty of success on those in recent years.

Not this time.

The ball ultimately fell incomplete, but not without a few anxious moments for the Broncos. The ball popped up in the air and was just hanging there, waiting for a miraculous catch.

It wasn’t necessarily well played or even well coached, but damn if that ending wasn’t fun.