Right in the mix of BYU’s win over Houston on Saturday night, the Cougars took a hit from a thousand miles away, in Ames, Iowa, where Iowa State beat Kansas State and eliminated BYU from the very thing the Cougars had set their sights on for so long in this one Season – a berth in the Big 12 Championship Game. They missed that opportunity because of their own mistakes and defeats in recent weeks and in the Cyclones’ knockout roundhouse.

BYU’s sloppy 30-18 win on its home field might have taken some of the pain away from the landed haymaker, but…not all of it. How could it be?

“Since we didn’t do business that way,” Kalani Sitake said, “we had to rely on the tiebreaker system. And that’s a great lesson for us, that you can’t keep making mistakes and trying to find ways out of them.”

But that’s exactly what his team did – they messed up and suffered because they couldn’t find a solution, fix it, and remedy it.

You know the chronology: Nine straight wins, two straight losses, one at home against Kansas, one at Arizona State, both losses littered with BYU mistakes, and then, even in their win over Houston, the Cougars stumbled and stumbled and stumbled, turned around, turned the ball over, made fumbles and blunders, in a triumphant mess that suggested that, win or lose, qualify or not, they weren’t quite real are championship material.

If that sounds harsh, it’s because it is. But that’s no one’s fault but the Cougars. They are the ones who, despite being predicted to finish in the bottom third of the Big 12, instead rose to the top third. And with that surprise rise, expectations also rose, to the point that the way they faltered over the last month, including their overall performance on Saturday night, can be classified as…disappointingly good.

“We’re close to being in the conference championship game,” Sitake said. “…We’re so close…”

Horseshoes and hand grenades close.

The coach repeatedly reiterated that the Cougars will not sink in the final weeks of the season and can rely on other teams to save them. No, no, no, he said, “Find a way to win the games and do it straight.”

They finished the regular season 10-2, 7-2 in the league, and they will still be burdened with a pondering question that no one likes to carry in their head or on their back: What could have been?

It could have been so much more.

Specific to Saturday night, a win that was emblematic of previous defeats, Sitake said: “We made a lot of mistakes. … We can play better.”

He added: “We didn’t play like we normally do.”

But at the end of the regular season, no one is quite sure what normal looks like for the Cougars. Does anyone really know what is normal and what is not?

“I have to get these guys back on track,” Sitake said.

Regardless, the Cougars celebrated their Houston win — a win for the sake of a win — in a bittersweet way. They hugged each other. They honored their seniors. They would have toasted their successes if it hadn’t led to an Honor Code investigation.

Fans and apologists might even argue that a 10-win BYU team should be considered for a playoff invitation, but that seems like going too far for a team that played much better in a crowded conference in September and October than last November.

Even on the last night of November, against Houston, the Big 12 also ran the Cougars, while Sitake whined, heaved and hacked, allowing the visitors, who featured one of the worst offenses in the country, to plow the field – 80 yards in 10 plays – to score the game’s first touchdown near the end of the first quarter. Immediately afterward, Houston attempted an onside kick that was caught by Talan Alfrey and returned 58 yards for a BYU score.

Houston took a 10-7 lead and BYU countered with two touchdowns and scored its second touchdown nine seconds before halftime. And while a 21-10 lead seemed somewhat satisfactory for the Cougars, their turmoil tore holes in the bottom of their boat. Problems like a botched third-quarter drive to the Houston 3-yard line that ended with a third-and-1 play in which quarterback Jake Retzlaff fended off a high snap and was recovered by Houston. When Houston was forced to punt, that punt was deflected by BYU and recovered by Houston.

A subsequent 10-play drive by BYU, aided by Houston penalties, got within two yards of the goal line, but a strange sweep call took receiver Keelan Marion wide to the line of scrimmage, where he slipped, losing yardage and BYU forced a field goal.

Houston responded with a scoring drive and a two-point conversion that cut the lead to 24-18 with 8:34 left in the fourth.

BYU responded with a three-pointer.

Houston grabbed the ball at its own 37-yard line and appeared to be in a position to at least threaten to take the lead. But when QB Zeon Chriss suffered a strip sack that sent the bouncing ball flying back to the 18-yard line, BYU recovered and scored on a Retzlaff run with just under three minutes to play. Game over. The only excitement after that occurred immediately after the score, when a fight broke out in the end zone, with Houston cornerback AJ Haulcy being thrown along with BYU receiver Darius Lassiter.

BYU is now in a foggy holding pattern, waiting to find out which bowl game the Cougars will be invited to. Whatever it is, it may come with a shiny trophy, but it doesn’t include a chance at anyone’s championship. And in a season that for so long has been all about title games of one kind or another, in the Big 12 or, even grander, in the College Football Playoff, what comes next is sure to be a disappointment.

“Something to aspire to,” Sitake called it.

The way it is.

And for that, the Cougars can only congratulate or blame themselves.