BOCA RATON, Fla. — Zach Wilson faked a handoff and rolled to his right. The BYU quarterback was moments away from his latest highlight against UCF in Tuesday’s Boca Bowl at FAU Stadium.
Wilson planted his feet and fired a pass down the right sideline, where Neil Pau’u had a step on his defender.
Pau’u hauled in the perfectly placed ball for a 35-yard touchdown, the Cougars’ fifth in six first-half drives.
It was a reminder of two things that were made apparent on more than one occasion by that point in No. 16 BYU’s 49-23 win.
First, UCF had no answers for one of college football’s top quarterbacks. Second, Wilson showed no mercy in what was most likely his final game as a college football player.
Wilson threw for 425 yards on 26-of-34 passing. He had 330 passing yards by halftime — better than all but three of his single-game performances this season. He was responsible for five touchdowns in those opening two quarters, three with his arm and two with his legs.
And he looked all the part of the first-round pick that he will most likely become should he choose to go pro.
ESPN’s Todd McShay has Wilson, a junior, ranked as the No. 15 overall player and fourth-ranked quarterback — behind Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, Ohio State’s Justin Fields and North Dakota State’s Trey Lance — in this draft cycle.
“I love his competitiveness and toughness in the pocket,” McShay wrote of Wilson in his latest rankings, “and he has a high-end ability to extend plays. His deep-ball accuracy is also outstanding.”
McShay’s ESPN colleague Mel Kiper Jr. has Wilson ranked as the No. 14 overall prospect, noting that Wilson “has a stellar arm and can climb the pocket to find the open receiver.”
“He’s the complete package,” Kiper added.
So, naturally, Wilson picked apart a UCF defense that came into the game ranked 117th out of 127 Football Bowl Subdivision teams in passing defense with an average of 283.4 passing yards allowed per game.
Wilson led touchdown drives of 87, 72, 76, 68 and 87 yards in the first half as BYU (11-1), No. 16 in the final College Football Playoff rankings, took a 35-10 lead into halftime. He threw two touchdown passes to tight end Isaac Rex (36 yards on a flea flicker and 27 yards over the middle) in addition to the second-quarter touchdown toss to Nau’u.
He ran for two more touchdowns, a 15-yard scamper to cap the first drive of the game and a 3-yard run to put BYU up 21-0 with 25 seconds left in the first quarter.
But Tuesday was just the latest in Wilson’s dominance this year. He came into the game completing 73.2 percent of his passes for 3,267 yards and 30 touchdowns against just three interceptions. Wilson has also shown his mobility this season, rushing for 242 yards and eight touchdowns heading into the bowl game.
UCF (6-4) broke up the shutout when Greg McCrae’s 5-yard touchdown run capped a 15-play, 80-yard drive with 10:11 left in the second quarter to cut BYU’s lead to 14 points, 21-7. That’s the closest the Knights would get the rest of the night and was one of the few times UCF’s usually high-octane offense managed to sustain a drive against BYU.
The Cougars relied primarily on their run game during the second half, adding touchdowns on a 35-yard Tyler Allgeier run and 6-yard Gunner Romney run on a reverse in the third quarter to push BYU’s lead to 49-17 heading to the fourth quarter. Allgeier ran for a career-high 173 yards on 19 carries.
THIS AND THAT
— UCF’s Divaad Wilson, a Miami Northwestern alumnus, was ejected for targeting in the first quarter after leading with his helmet on a tackle at the end of BYU running back Lopini Katoa’s 34-yard catch-and-run, a play that included Katoa hurdling over a UCF defender.
— Twenty-two players on UCF’s roster are from Miami-Dade or Broward counties.
— UCF’s defense gave up more than 650 yards for the second time this season. The other came when they allowed 703 yards against Memphis on Oct. 17.
