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Fort Collins, Colo. • Scratch a couple more items off BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall's great reclamation project checklist for the 2010 season.

The Cougars, once left for dead after dropping four of their first five games, haven't only finally won a road game, they've evened their overall record at 5-5 and are just a win away from bowl eligibility.

Their sputtering, backfiring wreck of an offense suddenly has turned into a freight train and shows no sign of slowing down. Their defense is punishing foes and causing turnovers.

Continuing the same domination of another woeful Mountain West Conference opponent that they displayed last week, the Cougars routed Colorado State 49-10 at Hughes Stadium on Saturday.

An announced crowd of 16,501 witnessed BYU's next step back to respectability, although only a thousand or so hardy souls outlasted the cold, occasional snow flurries and blustery conditions to see Cougars backup quarterback James Lark take a knee at the CSU 7-yard line to end one of the worst home losses in Rams history.

Mendenhall and some of the older players said they didn't see this one coming, especially with the way CSU (3-8) almost topped bowl-bound San Diego State on the road last week before falling 24-19. But the Cougars' spunky freshman quarterback did. Jake Heaps completed 15 of 20 passes for 242 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions, notching the eighth-best passing-efficiency mark (242.7) for a single game in school history.

"This isn't a shock to me," said Heaps, who threw all four of those TD passes in the first half to senior receiver Luke Ashworth. "We could have been doing this since Week 1."

Of course, Heaps didn't become the Cougars' full-time starter until Week 4. He's now 4-3 in that role and has never looked more confident than he did Saturday in shredding CSU's secondary. For the second straight week, he didn't play a down in the fourth quarter.

BYU had 396 of its 526 total yards in the first three quarters, causing Mendenhall to proclaim the unit "just took another step forward" after looking inept for most of the first half of the season.

"It's hard to even remember the beginning of this season," Mendenhall said. "There's been so much work that's been put in to kind of reach where we are now. And I can't tell you exactly where that is, other than we are an improved team from where we started."

The Rams will attest to that.

They trailed 35-0 at halftime in what was quite likely their last shot at a longtime conference rival, and coach Steve Fairchild sent the field-goal unit in with a little less than eight minutes remaining and his team trailing 42-0 just to avoid being shut out. Ben Deline made a 34-yarder. The Rams later punched in a 22-yard TD pass with 3:07 remaining against the Cougars' third-stringers.

"There are no excuses," Fairchild said. "We got outplayed, we got outcoached and we got outclassed. I did not see this coming."

Ashworth's first TD catch came on BYU's second possession, when offensive coordinator Robert Anae called for a trick play — a flea-flicker — on first-and-10. Heaps took a pitch back from J.J. Di Luigi and delivered a strike that ended up setting the tone for the rest of the day.

When linebacker Kyle Van Noy returned a fumble 44 yards for a touchdown on the first play of the second quarter to make it 21-0, the Rams were finished.

"We are only going up," said Van Noy, another freshman who said he wasn't surprised that Saturday's win came so easily. "We are feeling it now."

drew@sltrib.comTwitter: @drewjay,@sltribbyu —

Storylines

R In Short • The Cougars play their second straight complete game and demolish Colorado State for their first road win.

Key Moment • Jake Heaps' 62-yard flea-flicker to Luke Ashworth for a touchdown stuns CSU and gives BYU an early 7-0 lead.

Key Stat • Ashworth catches four touchdown passes, all in the first half, to tie a school record for most TD grabs in a game.