You want to go into a tough environment to win a tough game, you lean on, depend on, you dial up the services of a tough hombre. A leader who can carry you through trouble to triumph. That’s exactly what BYU did on Saturday night at Cincinnati.
The Cougars called on LJ Martin. And the running back answered.
Playing the most significant role in BYU’s 26-14 victory, he ran for 222 yards, including the game’s 33-yard contest-clinching score, 2 touchdowns in all, and he led his team in receiving yards, with 44.
Afterward, Martin didn’t say much, leaving himself out of it, as is his way. He just praised his teammates, the ones who blocked for him, adding that what he did was “easy.”
Yeah, right. He’s not full of himself, he’s just full of it.
He had everything to do with BYU’s 10th win — and barring a nearly unimaginable loss at home next weekend against UCF, the Cougars’ now resultant clear shot at a berth in the Big 12 championship game, and maybe even an invitation to the College Football Playoff.
Martin explained his team’s happy circumstance and what created it thusly: “It’s resilience. Everyone is out here fighting.”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Brigham Young running back LJ Martin (4) kneels in the end zone at Lavell Edwards Stadium on Sept. 6.
That resilience, that fight began and ended with You-Know-Who. The other Cougars on both sides of the ball did their jobs, too, but the heaviest lift came from RB1.
“He’s an outstanding back,” Cincinnati coach Scott Satterfield said. “He leads the Big 12 in rushing, so they just let him carry the football,” and thereby control the game and the game’s outcome.
The coach also used the word “incredible” to describe Martin’s workload.
He carried the ball 32 times, either slithering through cracks at the line of scrimmage or ramming directly into tacklers and dragging them backward to his advantage. One such play came late in the game, when BYU was attempting to tuck the outcome away. He picked up a crucial first down, after getting momentarily stoned and stunned, then proceeding to power forward for more than the yardage needed.
“We were able to possess the ball, and get some first downs,” said Kalani Sitake, who added that Martin was pushing subs out of the way in order to stay on the field. “I’m really proud of LJ, and the O-line. … He was doing so good. He was the hot hand, [so] we just kept feeding it to him. … I know he’s not 100 percent, but, man, when he plays with that mindset, it’s hard for anybody to stop him.”
The Bearcats couldn’t.
Let’s say it the way it is.
There hasn’t been a Cougar running back doing such things on the reg or at all since Tyler Allgeier set BYU’s single-season rushing record in 2021. Back then, the Cougars had other weapons, just as they do this season, but without the big back, that offense never would have ascended to the heights it did. He wasn’t just a contributor, he was an invaluable facilitator.
Same with Martin this time around. He’s not simply valuable, he’s necessary. He’s the team’s — not just the offense’s — heart and soul, the main beam holding the thing up, the man who puts the go in BYU’s O.
Bear Bachmeier, the freshman quarterback with the baby face and the leathery fortitude, gets a lot of credit, a lot of pub for what he’s done so far at BYU. He also picked up rugged yards on the ground against Cincinnati, and also threw for a few, demonstrating the resilience of which Martin spoke. But it was Martin himself who deserved some glorious combination of the Tough Mother Trophy and the Earl Campbell Award for not only punishing Bearcat defenders, but for enabling this victory.
Sitake got an award, too, his for the postgame’s biggest understatement about Martin: “He’s a playmaker.”
No, on this night, he was a game-saver, an owner of the game.
On another of his many tractor-pull runs, a 6-yard smash, Martin crossed the 1,000-yard threshold for the season, even though he’d missed time with a shoulder injury a few weeks ago. It’s no coincidence that the single defeat BYU’s suffered — a lopsided loss at Texas Tech — is a game in which the Cougars’ offense was stymied, and Martin wasn’t the hammer he usually is because of the dinged shoulder.
Now the Cougars face UCF — 5-6 overall, 2-6 in league — at LaVell’s Place, and, thereafter, likely their friends from Lubbock in the CCG. Win that, and they’re automatically in the College Football Playoff. With good fortune, which the Big 12 has been short of by the playoff committee’s measurements, depending on style points in a second loss, they still might make the CFP. Hard to predict with any exactness what those folks will do, although it’s easy to guess teams from the SEC and Big Ten will find favor. Or — who knows? — maybe Utah.
Whatever happens to or for the Cougars, LJ Martin will be a centerpiece. Bachmeier might be BYU’s Bear, but Martin is its horse.