BYU's William Fale (Paul Meyers photo)

BYU has moved to 3-0 in its fall season with a hard fought 22-11 win against Texas A&M Friday night in Provo, UT.

Neither team seemed able to get into their flow as knock-ons and referee whistles punctuated the game. With the stop and start nature of the game, BYU head coach David Smyth saw his team taken to task up front.

"Texas A&M was very good at the break down," he said, "They disrupted the majority of our possession and our guys never really were able to adjust."

Despite the pressure up front, it was BYU who would score first off a penalty in the opening minutes by the boot of fullback Sam Thorley. The Aggies would soon counter from a BYU turn-over and subsequent penalty. The following notched penalty kick would tie up the game at 3-3.

After another BYU penalty from Thorley and long series of kicking exchanges it was BYU that scored the game's first try in the 30th minute. Another try moments later put BYU into the lead at halftime 16-3.

"At halftime we talked about getting back to the simple things that we weren't doing," BYU captain Steve St Pierre recalled, "but we didn't do that and they [Texas A&M] kept coming at us, but we were able to just hold on."

After the break, the Aggies controlled territory through the boot and BYU was forced to muster long attacks. In doing so they repeatedly knocked the ball on and offered Texas A&M prime striking territory.

A&M bounced back into the game first in the second half as they pressured the Cougars' scrum five meters from the BYU tryline. A Thorley clearance kick from his own endzone was blocked and the Aggies pounced for the easy try. No conversion was made as BYU held on to a loose 16-8 lead.

Later the Aggies added another penalty to edge closer at 16-11, but two last quarter penalties by Thorley kept the Cougars ahead and helped them hold on for the win.

"We obviously didn't have our best game," Smyth added, "And of course I'm extremely disappointed, but the Aggies made it hard on us to have a great game and they deserve a lot of praise with how they came at us tonight."

The Cougars remain unbeaten on the season, but will have their work cut out for them to prepare for another tough squad in Cal Poly SLO next Friday night.

"We can't have a similar performance [next week] as we did tonight," Smyth continued, "Our guys got a very big wake up call tonight and they better rise to the challenge."

Things don’t get any easier for Texas A&M as they take on Utah Saturday.