Pop-Tarts Bowl features quarterback Haynes King vs. Bear Bachmeier
ORLANDO, Fla. — One team has a King, one has a Bear, and whichever gets the best out of its star player likely has the best shot at bringing home the Pop-Tarts Bowl trophy Saturday.
Haynes King of Georgia Tech and Bear Bachmeier of BYU are two of the nation’s top quarterbacks, and each will take the field at Camping World Stadium (3:30 p.m., ABC) looking to cap the 2025 season with one more victory.
“My mentality going into this game is just we’re going to, one, go out there and have fun,” King said Wednesday. “But two, try to go out there and execute and find ways to win. It’s always more fun when you win.”
On Saturday, King will be ending his college football career, and his three seasons as Tech’s starting QB. The Texas A&M graduate enrolled at Tech in January 2023 and has put the No. 22 Yellow Jackets (9-3) on his back ever since.
The 6-foot-3, 215-pound Texan leaves a legacy as one of the best players in Tech history, a segment of his athletic career that he’s not quite ready to grasp. But Tech quarterbacks coach Chris Weinke had no problems Wednesday putting into perspective what King has meant for Tech.
“I can’t say enough about him,” Weinke said. “I’ve had the opportunity to coach a lot of quarterbacks, trained a lot of quarterbacks over the years. This one here is special. Everything he does, he does it for the people around him. It’s never about him. It never will be about him. It’s always going to be about the team.
“I’ve been very fortunate and pleased for the last three years to be able to help him in his process of achieving his goals. But more importantly, also just observing on game day how much joy he brings to not only me but our team, the fans. His legacy is going to be special. And I know he doesn’t talk about it now, but he’ll go down in history as one of the best to ever put on this uniform.”
On the other side of the field will be Bachmeier, a freshman who began the year at Stanford before transferring to BYU over the summer. The 6-2, 230-pound California native has thrown for 2,708 yards, completed 64.2% of his passes and made 14 touchdown throws.
And like King, Bachmeier can run, totaling 527 yards on the ground and scoring 11 times.
“(Bachmeier) is a special player,” BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick said Wednesday. “I think the thing that stands out most about him is his poise. It’s rare to see a freshman who is so unbothered by any circumstances good or bad in a game. He’s had a lot of success this year. He’s not real impressed with himself. He keeps working and gets ready to play again the next week, and then when we’ve stumbled, he’s not a guy who dwells on it or gets discouraged by it. He’s always playing the next play, and he’s just a very steady, consistent person in all areas of his life.”
Both defenses should be well-versed in preparing to defend dual-threat quarterbacks, considering they have to face their own during most practices. The No. 12 Cougars (11-2) will enter the game with a rush defense that finished third in the Big 12 by allowing only 122.1 yards per game on the ground (Utah was the only team to reach the 200-yard rushing mark against BYU this season).
That doesn’t mean the Cougars are overconfident in their ability to try to slow King.
“I think his feel for the game is obvious. He can throw. He can run it. He does a great job of distributing the ball to the right people at the right time,” BYU defensive coordinator Jay Hill said Wednesday. “He is one of the best we faced this year, and we faced some really good ones. Doesn’t throw a lot of interceptions and doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. He is one of these guys that earns what he gets and he does a great job at it.”
Tech, meanwhile, was one of the worst rush defenses in the ACC by giving up 188.6 yards per game on the ground. Teams have averaged 4.6 yards per carry against the Tech defense and scored 19 rushing touchdowns.
Defensive coordinator Blake Gideon has seen his unit give up 227.3 yards per game through the air, too, and that total includes limiting Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton to 70 yards in the regular-season finale. The Jackets will need to put forth a similar performance against Bachmeier, who can exploit defenses with his arm and his legs.
“(Bachmeier) carries what (BYU) coach (Kalani) Sitake wants in their program, and that’s important when you have a guy that’s guaranteed to touch the ball every snap,” Gideon said. “Our preparation, and obviously dealing with (King) in our offense every day, there is some carryover. But these guys are professional coaches and players, too, on the other side, and so they will have their change-ups. They do a great job of finding the weakness, the soft spot in the defense, and we’re going to have to be prepared to adjust. I think that’s the main thing in bowl games.”
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