BYU Football Progress Report: Portland State Edition
Aug 31, 2025, 9:58 AM
PROVO, Utah – This season, I’ll be assigning a letter grade to each BYU football unit the day after every game. I’m calling it the Progress Report.
As was expected, the Cougars took care of business last night by defeating Portland State. What was not expected was shutting out the Vikings and scoring 69 points in the process.
BYU Football Progress Report: Portland State edition
With the win, BYU football moves to 20-0 all-time against FCS programs. Last night’s performance also set a BYU record for the largest margin of victory in a shutout. Now, let’s dive into the grades.
Offense: A
It’s hard to be critical of an outing where the offense scores 56 points and sets up kicker Will Ferrin for a pair of field goals. BYU called off the dogs after two quarters and still managed to score 20 second-half points with its reserves.
After the first drive stalled, Bear Bachmeier seemed to get comfortable and delivered some great passes.
The true freshman signal-caller completed 7-of-11 pass attempts for 97 yards and three scores, and he ran for another two touchdowns.
Bachmeier is a big body who punished defenders trying to bring him down. He also showed some shiftiness I didn’t know he had. Overall, I came away impressed with his opening performance and look forward to watching him in a tougher test this week against Stanford.
LJ Martin showed why he received so much praise during fall camp, and his speed and toughness were highlighted in a 49-yard run where he carried defenders the final 10 yards.
Physical runs by Jovesa Damuni and Lucky Finau, and the speed displayed by wide receiver Cody Hagen on a reverse, were icing on the cake for BYU’s offense.
Because of that—and so much more—the offense deserves an A.
Defense: A+
Portland State finished with just 51 yards of total offense. Even wilder, the Vikings had 47 yards after their first two drives.
Despite replacing all four starting defensive linemen from a season ago, the Cougars held Portland State to -2 yards rushing on the night.
Defensive tackle John Taumoepeau was incredible, and I thought of all the defensive players, he had the best game.
POST GAME PRESS CONFERENCE
BYU vs Portland State | @john_taumoepeau pic.twitter.com/cf8WIPnot2
— BYU FOOTBALL (@BYUfootball) August 31, 2025
Taumoepeau finished with three tackles, 0.5 a tackle for loss, one fumble recovery and a blocked field goal that resulted in a scoop-and-score by Jack Kelley.
The defense did see their streak of 14 consecutive games with an interception come to an end, but I don’t think you’ll see any player hang their head because of it. It was an A+ outing for what looks to be once again the best defense in the Big 12.
Special Teams: A-
An A-minus?
But Will Ferrin tied a BYU record with a 56-yard field goal, and Jack Kelly took a blocked kick back 54 yards for a touchdown!
Yes, however, Parker Kingston’s fumble on a punt return can’t happen.
Kingston’s fumble caused no harm in this occurrence, but that may not always be the case. Special teams can’t commit turnovers and give the opposition short fields to work with.
The special teams did a lot of good, but I’ll drop the grade because of Kingston’s fumble.
Along with Kingston, BYU football had two more players return punts in last night’s contest—Stanford transfer Tiger Bachmeier and freshman speedster Cannon DeVries.
Kingston had the longest return (that stood), of 31 yards, but Cannon Devries had a 52-yard punt return called back for a block in the back penalty.
At the end of the day, I thought it was once again a very successful first showing for Kelly Poppinga’s unit.
Overall: A
Again, you can’t complain about a 69-0 win, even if it’s against an inferior FCS opponent. The common belief is that the biggest improvement comes between the first and second games, and it’ll be fascinating to see what that could look like for BYU football when it lines up against Stanford from the ACC on Saturday night.
Kickoff is set for 8:15 p.m. MDT and will pit freshman QB Bear Bachmeier up against his former squad. We’ll have you covered for the matchup on KSL Sports all week leading up to kickoff.
Nate Slack is an Executive Producer for Cougar Sports Saturday (Noon-3 p.m.) on KSL NewsRadio.
