Battlefield promotions make heroes of third-string Utes, page D3PROVO - Don't make your Holiday Bowl reservations just yet, Cougar fans. Utah can still have a say in whether you spend the holidays in San Diego or Anaheim.
It seems Western Athletic Conference officials have been confused on whether or not BYU has clinched a berth in the San Diego postseason game.Last week, WAC Assistant Commissioner Dee Menzies said that a BYU-San Diego State tie would put the Cougars in the Holiday Bowl, even if BYU lost to Utah this week and Air Force lost to Hawaii. In that scenario, BYU and SDSU would be even at 6-1-1, Utah and Air Force tied for third at 5-3. To break the tie, Menzies said, the head-to-head rule would be invoked on the Utah-Air Force deadlock, and since the Falcons won that game, they would be considered the third-place team. BYU would then get the Holiday Bowl nod by virtue of having beaten Air Force; the Aztecs lost to the Falcons.
Sunday, however, WAC Commissioner Joe Kearney contacted BYU officials to inform them that they had not clinched the Holiday Bowl. Kearney told Val Hale, BYU assistant athletic director, that the third-place tie is not decided by head-to-head comparison. So if BYU loses to Utah on Saturday, and Air Force loses at Hawaii, here's the way the tiebreaker system works:
- BYU will be 6-1-1. SDSU, which finished its WAC season Saturday, will be 6-1-1. The first decider in the tiebreaker procedure is the head-to-head matchup, but Saturday's 52-52 tie nullifies that.
- The next tiebeaker is the two teams' performance against the next team in the WAC standings. But since Air Force and Utah will have tied, at 5-3; and since BYU will have beaten Air Force but lost to Utah; and SDSU will have beaten Utah but lost to Air Force; and both first-place teams will have beaten all the other WAC teams, this step is nullified, too.
- That brings us to the final step, which is to eliminate the team that went to the Holiday Bowl most recently. That was BYU, of course, which means that San Diego State gets the Holiday Bowl, BYU gets the Freedom Bowl.
In simple terms, the Cougars get a postseason trip to San Diego if they beat Utah in Provo, or if Air Force beats Hawaii in Honolulu.
So BYU's chances for a third-straight Holiday Bowl still look pretty good, especially in the afterglow of Saturday's wild encounter, in which the Cougs looked Freedom Bowl-bound until the final minute.
That tie knocked BYU out of the Associated Press Top 25, but it was great entertainment, pure history, the stuff of legend. How many people do you think went to bed when BYU was down 45-17 and only found out the final score Sunday morning? In San Diego, where the San Diego Union reported the score as 52-45, there may still be people thinking the Aztecs are WAC champs.
What a movie script it would make: The head coach makes an impassioned speech at halftime, with his team down 35-17, and his inspired players promptly go out and give up 10 quick points. But that was just setting the scene, getting the audience involved, providing the right backdrop for the sensational comeback.
In the glamour of the comeback, though, a lot of outstanding individual performances - mostly on offense, mind you - went overlooked. San Diego State freshman running back Marshall Faulk, the most heralded offensive player in the WAC this season, was impressive, with 118 yards rushing, 116 yards receiving and four touchdowns. But another freshman, BYU halfback Jamal Willis, was every bit as convincing. Willis averaged more yards per carry than Faulk in gaining 66 yards, made eight catches for 163 yards after having one reception all season previously, and scored three TDs.
BYU quarterback Ty Detmer, playing with 20 stitches over his left eye, shook off a mid-game slump and a serious case of frustration to complete 15 of 21 passes in the second half. Despite three interceptions, his pass efficiency for the game was 176, raising his season figure to 164.93. His net four yards rushing gave him 603 yards total offense, breaking Virgil Carter's 25-year-old record of 599. On a CNN sports show Sunday morning, the resident experts were sufficiently impressed to elevate Detmer to No. 2 on their Heisman list.
Others of note: Eric Drage, with 117 receiving yards; Byron Rex, fivecatches; Peter Tuipulotu, 118 combined rushing and receiving yards.
On the defensive side, the Aztecs exposed a weakness that BYU has tried to conceal all season - a susceptibility for being burned deep. In the first half, with little pressure put on Aztec QB David Lowery, the Cougs were burned on passes of 75, 79 and 80 yards.
The Cougars were without the services of two cornerbacks - Ervin Lee, suspended after a midweek shoplifting incident, and Paul Pitts, injured when he crashed his car into a tree (and also cited for shoplifting) - but other defensive players said it wouldn't have made a difference if they had been there.
"Maybe if (Florida State All-American) Terrell Buckley had been back there, it would have made a difference," said Rocky Biegel, BYU's outspoken middle linebacker.
Biegel said that the defensive game plan was too conservative in the first half. Instead of being allowed to blitz and pressure Lowery, he said, the Cougar linebackers got hung up in the middle, worrying about the Aztec running game. That gave Lowery time to throw, and receivers time to outrun defenders, and the result was 569 passing yards allowed.
In the second half BYU blitzed more, and the result was more sacks (four, to one in the first half) and fewer deep throws.
"We've got to be stronger on our man-to-man coverage," Biegel said. "There was nothing very positive for the defense about this game. Put that down."
GAME NOTES: It was Edwards' first tie since 1974 . . . It set an NCAA record for the highest-scoring tie in NCAA history. The previous was Utah State-San Jose State, 48-48, in 1979 . . . Lowery's pass efficiency for the game was 226.18 . . . SDSU coach Al Luginbill called the game "the lowest point of my career" . . . If it's any consolation, all those young players figure to make San Diego State a WAC power for the next two or three years.