PROVO ā Before Saturday’s regular-season finale, LJ Martin took a short pregame jog with 21 of his BYU teammates.
For 18 of them, it would be the final time ā barring an as-yet unexpected College Football Playoff home game ā they would run out of the tunnel, and seniors like Chase Roberts, Tanner Wall, Logan Lutui and Jack Kelly were trying to enjoy it.
For Martin and teammates Isaiah Glasker, Keanu Tanuvasa and punter Sam Vander Haar, there’s a chance they’ll be back. But maybe not.
And so just in case, the Cougars gave the quartet a proper sendoff with their graduating seniors, handing out a senior blanket before a 41-21 win over UCF and allowing them to walk across LaVell Edwards Stadium one final time.
In between, Martin ran for 95 yards and a career-best three touchdowns on 22 carries, finishing five yards shy of what would’ve been the seventh 100-yard rushing game of the season and ninth of his career.
After the season ā which will include next week’s Big 12 championship game in Martin’s native Texas and a bowl game or potential CFP berth ā Martin has a decision to make. After three years at BYU, he’ll be eligible to enter the NFL draft in the spring.
Of course, the transfer portal always beckons for any player in college football. But Martin has the chance to transfer to a professional franchise, and begin an NFL clock that has become all-too-short for running backs.
“Just the feedback I’ve gotten, it was suggested (to walk on senior day),” Martin said in his usual reserved manner after the game.
The final decision will come with a lot of thought, some likely interviews, and prayers by both Martin and his family. It likely won’t be one he takes lightly. Before then, the former Canutillo High star in El Paso hopes to have multiple games left, beginning with the first conference championship game appearance in 27 years and a College Football Playoff berth for the first time in school history.
“We just need to go out there and prove it,” Martin said, answering affirmatively when asked if BYU is a Playoff team, “like we’ve been trying to do.”
Same for Glasker, whose stock undeniably crescendoed during the 2025 season playing alongside teammate Jack Kelly, and Tanuvasa, the former All-Big 12 honorable mention who played 24 games in three seasons at Utah before totaling 23 tackles, four tackles for loss, two sacks and two passes defended in 12 starts with the Cougars.
Worst-case scenario, head coach Kalani Sitake says, involves BYU honoring a player twice and awarding two senior blankets.
“I am always going to want what’s best for our players,” Sitake said. “We want to make sure we give every player a farewell and senior game, whether they decide to test the NFL draft or come back for another season.”
That could be the case for Martin, the former Alamo Bowl offensive MVP who ran for 1,229 yards and 11 touchdowns behind an offensive line that will also lose Isaiah Jatta, Austin Leausa and Weylin Lapuaho to graduation ā though he said his decision hasn’t been made.
“I just want to make the most of the opportunities that I’m given,” Martin said. “I’m just glad that we’re getting it done.
“I think those are cool stats for the O-line, to show that they were moving guys and getting the job done.”
Before Martin, Tyler Allgeier was another breakout NFL back before entering the NFL draft in 2021. The decision was understandable ā Allgeier piled up 1,606 yards and 23 touchdowns in his redshirt junior campaign, his second straight topping the 1,000-yard mark and fourth after redshirting four games in 2018.
BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick has been “reluctant” to compare any of his tailbacks to Allgeier, the former fifth-round pick in his fourth season with the Atlanta Falcons. But Martin has earned the distinction ā especially after running for a career-high 222 yards and two touchdowns on an eye-popping 32 carries in a 26-14 win over Cincinnati.
“That was a night you could say he was Tyler-esque, for sure,” Roderick said. “Tyler was a great player, and LJ is a great player ā and I think you could say they’re both a couple of the great ones that have played here.”
And if Saturday was his last home game in a BYU uniform, he left a strong impression.
“He didn’t just come up on a thousand yards this season,” Leausa said. “It’s all of the work he put in through the offseason and all of the success he’s had. It’s definitely something that he’s been working very hard towards.”
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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