Raider Damuni hurt his left leg late in the second quarter of the Week 1 win over Utah Tech, needed help getting off the field and never came back. Before BYU's Arizona game in September, Kelly Poppinga attached a calendar to it. BYU is targeting a mid-to-late-October return for its starting safety, and Kalani Sitake said around the same time that the leg injury is not season-ending. For Saturday it means Tommy Prassas keeps the strong safety job in the loudest building BYU has visited all year. Prassas has handled it so far. He and Cannon DeVries stopped Rodney Gallagher III short on a fourth-down attempt, a turnover on downs confirmed by replay that swung the game.
The other half of the pairing is still on a leash. Faletau Satuala has 12 tackles through three games but played sparingly in the second halves of both the Utah Tech and Colorado State games. Nobody has declared him unrestricted, though. BYU's back end at Amon G. Carter Stadium is a promoted backup plus a veteran whose fourth quarter is being rationed.
What covers for that is the run game. BYU has rushed for 788 yards at 6.7 per carry, which Pro Football Focus grades as the No. 2 rushing offense in the country, and LJ Martin sits 131 yards from becoming BYU's fourth 3,000-yard career rusher. At Colorado State the Cougars ran for 332 yards on 41 carries, 176 of them from Martin with three touchdowns. Bear Bachmeier's passing has been efficient rather than heavy, 12 of 16 for 227 yards at CSU, but no touchdown pass and his first interception of the season, picked off by CJ Blocker in the end zone. Against a defense that had allowed only 29 points through three games, the fewest for TCU since 2014, BYU may need more from the throw game than 16 attempts. Keeping Martin at 20-plus carries and the ball out of a young secondary's hands is the same plan either way.
That is the kind of afternoon Poppinga's defense is built to feed on; his group already flipped Arizona at halftime, holding the Wildcats to 87 yards and minus-2 rushing yards after a 240-yard first half as the pressure packages grew. Fort Worth is still the problem. BYU hasn't won there since a 31-17 upset in 2006 behind John Beck, and its only other visit as a Big 12 member was a 44-11 loss in 2023. BYU won 44-13 in Provo last November, with 296 passing yards and a 68-yard interception return of Josh Hoover to close it.
Kickoff is 5 p.m. Mountain on ESPN, and the model has it essentially even. BYU wins 51% of the time. The gap between outcomes is the whole month. Win and BYU's playoff number sits near 29% with title-game odds around 28%; lose and those fall to roughly 14% and 8%. Two years of 11-2 finishes ended with a 34-7 Big 12 Championship loss to Texas Tech and a No. 12 final CFP ranking that left the Cougars out. A first conference road win keeps the version of this season where that gets fixed.
One smaller thing to watch if the lead gets big. BYU committed eight penalties for 74 yards against Colorado State, mostly late, and Sitake spent the bye trying to clean up "uncharacteristic" mistakes, saying he wants improvement mostly from the backups. Reserves haven't played meaningful snaps since. A comfortable fourth quarter in Fort Worth is where that gets answered.
Elsewhere in the Big 12
Texas Tech at Colorado: root for Colorado
This result carries a 10.1 percentage-point impact on BYU's conference-title-game probability.
Colorado wins this about 8% of the time, so it almost certainly won't happen. It is still the most valuable result on the board. Texas Tech is the direct standings obstacle in the Big 12 race. BYU doesn't play the Red Raiders in the regular season, so the only way their record shrinks is other teams beating them. A Colorado upset puts BYU's title-game odds near 27%; a Texas Tech win leaves them near 17%. Kickoff is 5:30 p.m. Mountain on FOX.
UCF at Houston: root for UCF
UCF's chances here are about 35%, worth roughly 1.9 percentage points of playoff odds to BYU, 23% with the upset, 21% without. 10 a.m. Mountain on ESPN2. BYU visits UCF in Week 8, so this one doubles as scouting.
Cincinnati at Arizona: root for Cincinnati
Arizona already lost in Provo, and BYU would rather it keep losing. Cincinnati's road chances are about 25%, and the swing is again roughly 1.9 percentage points of playoff odds. Late window, 9 p.m. Mountain on FOX.
Middle Tennessee at Kansas: root for Kansas
This is the odd one. Root for the team BYU has to visit in Week 12. Kansas winning, about 82% likely, strengthens the Jayhawks' résumé and therefore the value of a BYU road win in November. Worth about 1.3 percentage points of playoff odds. 10 a.m. Mountain on ESPNU.
Full numbers and every scenario are in the interactive guide, and the methodology explains how the projections are built.