ANNAPOLIS, Md. — BYU football players and coaches showed up at fanless Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium on Monday night wearing T-shirts with messages of hope and love for a national television audience hungry for live sports after a summer of protests over racial inequality and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Then the Cougars sent a different kind of message. They played almost flawlessly in a 55-3 dismantling of a Navy team that, simply put, was not physically prepared for the contact of a live football game.
Coach Ken Niumatalolo admitted as much in his postgame news conference, saying he erred on the side of caution in fall camp due to concern over spreading the novel coronavirus.