7:30 p.m. | ABC
Alamodome San Antonio, Texas
THE SERIES
BYU and Colorado are meeting for the 13th time in the series The Cougars trail 3-8-1 against the Buffaloes, though the two schools have not played since 1988 in the Freedom Bowl BYU won the game played in Anaheim, California, 20-17, behind a comeback effort off the bench by redshirt freshman quarterback Ty Detmer The two schools were previously members of the same conference, beginning with the Rocky Mountain Conference from 1922-1936 and then the Mountain States from 1937-1947.
BYU Cougars Notes
BOWL GAMES
This will be BYU’s first appearance in the Alamo Bowl and the 41st bowl overall dating back to the 1974 Fiesta Bowl Among their 41 bowl appearances, the Cougars have played in 21 different bowl games in 12 states BYU’s 41 bowl invitations rank tied for No 23 among college programs In the Big 12, only Texas Tech has made more bowl appearances (42) The Cougars have gone bowling in 18 of the past 20 seasons More on BYU’s bowl history pages 7-10
10 GAMERS/WINS
BYU has won 10 games for the third time in five years under Kalani Sitake It is the 19th 10- win season overall for BYU Since 2020, BYU’s 44 wins under Sitake ranks No 12 nationally and the most wins of any Big 12 team
FLIPPED SCRIPT
In 2023, BYU had a 2-7 mark in its first year in the Big 12 In 2024, BYU flipped its conference record to 7-2, tying for first place in the league standings In 2023, Colorado was 1-8 in the Pac 12 Conference before turning things around into a 7-2 record in 2024
HEISMAN MATCHUP
BYU is facing the newest Heisman Trophy winner in Colorado’s Travis Hunter who was just named the winner of college football’s most prestigious award in December The Cougars have faced off against a Heisman winner three previous times in the year in which the player won the award, going 0-3 in those games (Herschel Walker, Georgia, 1982, Chris Weinke, Florida State, 2000, Matt Leinart, USC, 2004) When BYU and Colorado last played in the 1988 Freedom Bowl, redshirt freshman quarterback Ty Detmer led the comeback effort to beat the Buffs 20-17 Detmer would go on to win the Heisman Trophy in 1990.
YEAR TWO IN THE BIG 12 CONFERENCE
BYU looks to take a step forward in year two in the Big 12 Conference Year one was a learning experience with a 2-7 league record for the Cougars after finishing the Independence Era with a record of 99-56 The 99 wins tied for No 18 in college football over those 11 seasons After joining the conference last year along with Cincinnati, Houston and UCF, now the Big 12 grows in 2024 with Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado following the departure of Texas and Oklahoma
BIG 12 BIOGRAPHY
The Big 12 enters its 29th year as one of the nation’s premier conferences in college athletics under the leadership of Commissioner Brett Yormark Since joining the Conference in August 2022, Yormark has elevated the Big 12 to new heights, emphasizing marketing, brand building and instilling an innovative strategy that has resonated across the college athletics landscape Starting Aug 2, 2024, the Conference is composed of 16 universities spanning 10 states and four time zones The Big 12 members include Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech, Utah and West Virginia The Big 12 began play in 1996 and is the home of 87 team NCAA national championships, and 764 individual national champions The Big 12 Conference office is located in Irving, Texas The league sponsors 25 sports Men’s sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, indoor track & field, outdoor track & field, swimming & diving, tennis and wrestling Women’s sports include basketball, beach volleyball, cross country, equestrian, golf, gymnastics, indoor track & field, lacrosse, outdoor track & field, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis and volleyball The Conference currently conducts postseason championships for 24 of its 25 sports The league has been home to more than 800 Academic All-America recipients
BOWL FACTS AND FIGURES
Of BYU’s 40 previous bowl appearances, 20 of them have been decided by a one-score margin or less, including five games in Sitake era — 2016 Poinsettia Bowl (24-21 victory over Wyoming), 2019 Hawaii Bowl (38-34 loss to Hawaii), 2021 Independence Bowl (31-28 loss to UAB), he 2022 New Mexico Bowl (24-23 victory over SMU)
TAKING IT TO THE HOUSE
Listed below are the longest scoring plays in BYU bowl history from various scoring categories: • Passing: 70 yards – Aleva Hifo from Zach Wilson in the 2018 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl • Rushing: 39 yards – Tyler Allgeier in the 2020 Boca Raton Bowl • Interception return: 76 yards – Ben Bywater in the 2022 New Mexico Bowl • Fumble return: 34 yards – Matt Bauman in the 2009 Las Vegas Bowl • Kickoff return: 102 yards – Dave Lowry in the 1976 Citrus Bowl • Punt return: 83 yards – Vai Sikahema in the 1980 Holiday Bowl • Field goal: 45 yards – Justin Sorensen in the 2013 Fight Hunger Bowl and Trevor Sampson in the 2014 Miami Beach Bowl
THE HOLIDAY SEASON
Bowl games tend to fall on or near one of the many holidays in December and January Over the years, BYU has played on New Year’s Eve twice (1998 Liberty Bowl, 2001 Liberty Bowl), New Year’s Day once (1997 Cotton Bowl), Christmas Day once (1992 Aloha Bowl) and Christmas Eve once (2019 Hawaii Bowl) BYU has not played a bowl after Christmas since the 2013 Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl on Dec 27 From 1974-2013 however, the Cougars played after Christmas 15 times
Colorado Buffaloes Notes
Five Things To Know
• Travis Hunter won the 90th Heisman Trophy and the second in CU history. Rashaan Salaam in won the first Heisman Trophy in Colorado history in 1994. • Colorado is looking for its first Bowl win since the 2004 Houston Bowl. • Hunter was the first player in the 135-years to be named a First-Team All-American by the Walter Camp on both offense and defense. He is CU’s seventh Unanimous All-American. • Hunter, Shedeur Sanders, and BJ Green won a Big 12 Player of the Year award, this tied the school record for most in a season (1990). Among all the other firsts, Hunter was the first player ever to win both the Biletnikoff Award, given to the top receiver regardless of position, and the Bednarik Award, given to the top defensive player.
The Prime Effect
• When Coach Prime was hired, CU had 62,953 followers on CU football Instagram and 98,560 on CU football Twitter/X. Today, the Buffs are up to 1,041,411 followers on Instagram and 276,080 on Twitter/X. • Enrollment at CU Boulder is at a record high, with 38,428 enrolled for the fall. CU also set a record for student retention, with 90% of students who started here last fall returning to CU this year. CU also had a record number of applications from students who identify as Black or African American, with enrollment up 7.9% from last year. • Last semester he guest-lectured three times for a class called “Prime Time: Public Performance and Leadership” that was offered by our College of Media Communication and Information (students referred to him as “Professor Prime”). He was the keynote speaker at last spring’s Conference on World Affairs and he’s been a guest lecturer at the Leeds School of Business and the Law School • CU’s football team posted its best term GPA on record with a 2.932 last spring semester. It was the first time the team recorded over a 2.9 and the third time ever it scored over a 2.8 GPA. Travis Hunter was named a first-team 2023 Academic All-American, becoming just the second player in program history to earn first-team All-America and first-team Academic All-America honors. (Hunter has a 3.7 GPA)
Colorado leads the series by an 8-3-1 count against BYU, heading into the Alamo Bowl against their Big 12 conference opponent. These two ironically last lined up from one another all the way back in 1988, when they played in the Freedom Bowl in Anaheim, California.
• The Buffs and Cougars will play each other in San Antonio for the Alamo Bowl and it will be the first time the Buffaloes will have played a conference opponent in the program’s bowl game history. In the 1988 Freedom Bowl, Colorado lost to Brigham Young, 20-17; Before they both joined the Big 12, they were formerly in two other conferences together. The Buffs and Cougars were members of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference from 1922-37, and then the Mountain States Conference from 1938-47. Colorado was a dominant force against the Cougars early in the series history, winning the first six games, including four in Boulder, before the 1941 matchup in Provo in which the Cougars were able to snap their losing streak with a 13-13 tie. Since then, BYU has won three of the last five games.
DID YOU KNOW? —
During the Buffaloes six-game winning streak from 1923-1940 over the Cougars, Colorado outscored BYU 148-14 in that span, including three games in which the BYU offense was shut out.
A CLOSER LOOK
The Buffs and Cougars series history dates all the way back to their first matchup in 1923, over a century ago. A look back on the year 1923…
The Hollywood Sign was inaugurated in California (initially reading Hollywoodland). • The first game at Yankee Stadium, “The House That Ruth Built,” was played in New York City in April. • Roy and Walt Disney founded The Walt Disney Company. • The Coca-Cola ‘6 pack’ was introduced. The famed curved bottle was made beginning in 1916. That specific curve is copyrighted, so no one else can use it. The Coca-Cola logo is written in the Spenserian font. • The Sacramento Kings are the oldest team in the NBA. The franchise was formed in 1923 as the Rochester Seagrams, a semi-professional team from Rochester, New York.
