BYU’s defense stuffs Washington State

PROVO, Utah - Riley Nelson threw for two touchdowns, and third-string quarterback Taysom Hill added another on his first collegiate pass as Brigham Young beat Washington State 30-6 on Thursday night to spoil Mike Leach's return to coaching.

BYU intercepted Jeff Tuel twice and sacked him three times while limiting Leach's vaunted Air Raid attack to 224 yards of offense.

Washington State finished with minus-5 yards rushing.

Nelson finished 25 of 36 for 285 yards. Tight end Kaneakua Friel led BYU with six catches for 101 yards and two TDs.

Washington State came out passing as expected, with Tuel starting 8 of 9. But linebacker Uona Kaveinga intercepted his 10th pass, and the momentum shifted to BYU before a "white-out" crowd.

The game was Leach's first since Texas Tech fired him in 2009 amid allegations he mistreated a player with a concussion.

While there was much buzz about his return, against his alma mater, the results were the same for Washington State. Leach never played football at BYU, but he gained inspiration for his spread passing attack from LaVell Edwards, for whom BYU's stadium is named.

At one point in pregame interviews, Leach said his team looked more like BYU of old than BYU.

Not on Thursday.

BYU rolled up 426 yards of offense, nearly twice that of Washington State. And Nelson started slow but finished strong.

After Kaveinga's interception, Nelson engineered a 10-play, 80-yard TD drive to give BYU a 7-0 lead. He had two big third-down completions to Cody Hoffman on the drive, for 28 and 12 yards, and found Skyler Ridley open for the 7-yard scoring pass.

Hoffman, BYU's leading receiver in 2011, bruised his left quad on the 12-yard catch and did not return.

BYU's second touchdown came with Hill in shotgun formation as the wildcat quarterback. The freshman faked to the runner in motion left and then scrambled right and found Friel wide open for a 18-yard touchdown. It gave BYU a 14-0 lead with 13:26 left in the half.

■ No. 9 South Carolina 17, Vanderbilt 13 - At Nashville, Tenn., Marcus Lattimore ran for 110 yards and two touchdowns, and quarterback Connor Shaw ran for 92 yards while playing the second half with an injured throwing shoulder as the Gamecocks rallied to beat the Commodores in both teams' season opener.

Shaw hurt his right shoulder late in the first half and missed the first two series of the second. The junior drove South Carolina for the go-ahead touchdown and ran 12 yards to the Vandy 1 before rolling in pain in the end zone.

Lattimore scored the decisive TD on a 1-yard run with 11:25 to go.