Sam Morris / AP

BYU players celebrate with fans after the No. 19 Cougars beat UCLA 17-16 in the Las Vegas Bowl on Saturday night. BYU blocked a 28-yard field goal attempt by UCLA on the final play to secure the victory.

Hall was also sacked three times and fumbled on one of them, setting up Forbath’s 22-yard field goal that put the Bruins up 3-0 in the first quarter.

Markey ran for 117 yards for UCLA, the first runner to break the 100-yard mark against BYU this season. UCLA needed the running game to stay in it with its top two quarterbacks on the sideline with knee injuries.

Osaar Rasshan started and failed to complete his lone pass. Bethel-Thompson replaced him in the second quarter and was solid enough to keep the Bruins close, especially with the way the defense was playing.

UCLA got a huge break at the end of the first half when the Cougars decided to run a play instead of running out the clock inside their own 10. Hall handed off to Harvey Unga and Brian Price stripped the ball, which the Bruins recovered at the 4.

UCLA scored on a pass from Bethel-Thompson to Brandon Breazell as the second quarter ended and the Bruins were only down 17-13 at halftime instead of 17-6.

It was karma for a UCLA blunder that led to an easy score for BYU. Terrence Austin dropped a punt and BYU recovered at the UCLA 14, where Hall lofted a pass on first down to the back corner of the end zone and Austin Collie caught it running at full speed.

Collie went tumbling into the padding outside the sideline, but came up with the ball and gave BYU a 10-3 lead with 10:32 left in the second quarter. BYU scored again with 1:03 left on a 13-yard pass from Hall to Michael Reed.

The Cougars won the Las Vegas Bowl for the second straight year. The last time BYU ended consecutive seasons with bowl wins was 1983 and 1984, when BYU won its only national title.

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