Celebrating the BYU Seniors

The BYU Cougars celebrated their seniors Saturday night with a 45-10 drubbing of the New Mexico State Aggies. With the seniors playing their final game of their careers at Lavell Edwards Stadium, I decided to take a look back at some of the notable moments and players from the past few seasons for the Cougars.

Notable Players

• Corbin Kaufusi

Kaufusi is well known for being a dual-sport athlete, playing on both the football and men’s basketball teams before leaving the basketball team to focus solely on football. The decision paid off big time for Kaufusi who should find himself playing at the next level. Kaufusi dominated throughout his junior and senior seasons. Kaufusi totaled 85 tackles for his career to go along with 18.5 tackles for a loss and 16 sacks. And while the defensive end will miss the final three games of his senior season, Kaufusi’s football career is far from over.

• Squally Canada

Squally Canada had both the opportunity and the misfortune of playing behind BYU’s all-time leading rusher Jamal Williams for the first two seasons of his career. While injuries prevented Canada from ever becoming the full time starting running back at BYU, he has been the most consistent runner on the BYU team in 2017 and 2018. For his career, Canada tallied 1,438 rushing yards on 286 attempts at BYU. The running back also has 13 rushing touchdowns with two games still to go.

• Sione Takitaki

Takitaki’s journey to BYU stardom has been well documented the past couple of seasons but one thing is certain, when he was finally able to consistently see the field he dominated. Takitaki was BYU’s leading tackler for the past two seasons, tallying 79 total tackles in 2017 (43 solo) and has 83 tackles through 11 games in 2018. Takitaki is another BYU senior that should be playing at the next level next fall, along with Corbin Kaufusi. BYU will certainly miss the production from Takitaki, but his leadership might be the biggest loss for the Cougars.

Notable Games

• BYU - Nebraska

Since I didn’t highlight senior QB Tanner Mangum in our notable players, it’s only fitting that we highlight his signature moment at BYU. As a redshirt freshman just off his mission, Mangum was called upon to help BYU make a comeback on the road against the Nebraska Cornhuskers to start the season in 2015 after then-senior QB Taysom Hill went down with an injury. Mangum eventually completed one of the most famous BYU passes of all-time, a last-second hail mary completion to Mitch Matthews that gave the 33-28 victory. Mangum finished the game 7/11 for 111 yards and one touchdown.

• BYU - Toledo

The BYU vs Toledo game in 2016 was the most electrifying game of the 2018 seniors’ careers. The Cougars were able to escape with a narrow 55-53 victory. The 55 points against Toledo is the most points any of the seniors have scored in their time at BYU, with both teams scoring 14 or more points in 3 quarters. In a game that featured two future NFL running backs in Kareem Hunt and Jamal Williams, Squally Canada was able to get a piece of the action, rushing for 49 yards and one score. Defensively, three seniors were able to contribute as Corbin Kaufusi recorded three solo tackles, Adam Pulsipher tallied 8 total tackles and Tanner Jacobson had one solo tackle.

• BYU - Wisconsin

BYU’s victory in Madison, Wisconsin in 2018 was the marquee victory for the BYU seniors. Wisconsin entered the game ranked sixth in the country and was a year removed from a 40-6 beatdown of the Cougars in Provo. So it was a common perception that BYU didn’t stand a chance. But that was not the case, as BYU dominated the line of scrimmage with 191 rushing yards on 28 attempts with two touchdowns. Squally Canada had 118 rushing yards on 11 attempts (10.7 average) and two touchdowns. Defensively, Sione Takitaki led the way with 13 total tackles and a sack while Adam Pulsipher and Corbin Kaufusi combined for 14 total tackles as BYU upset the Badgers 24-21 after Wisconsin missed the game-tying field goal as time expired.

Contributions

As a group, here are SOME of the contributions on the part of the graduating seniors...

• 835 total tackles

• 33 sacks

• 76 tackles for a loss

• 6 interceptions

• 6221 passing yards

• 39 touchdown passes

• 26 touchdowns

• 1,812 rushing yards

• 307 points

Thank you to all the BYU Seniors.