On a day when it was supposed to fall into the abyss of below-.500 football for the first time since 1975 and only the second time in the LaVell Edwards generation, unranked and unheralded BYU mauled 14th-ranked Penn State 30-17 yesterday in Cougar Stadium.
The Cougars rose and routed. It was BYU that looked like the best team the Blockbuster Bowl could buy. Penn State looked like Idaho State. After scoring 83 points in its previous two games against BYU - 50 in the 1989 Holiday Bowl and 33 last year at State College - Penn State called off the Lions.Not only did the win improve the Cougars' 1992 record to 5-4 and give them renewed hopes at keeping their 14-year bowl streak alive, but it gave them a decisive win over a highly-regarded opponent.
They beat somebody good, good.
In Edwards' rather remarkable tenure at BYU, beating ranked opponents on a regular, and decisive, basis has been the only major blemish on the record - the skeleton sticking out of the closet.
Indeed, since the Cougars won their national championship in 1984, the problem has only gotten worse. Starting with the 1985 season and going into yesterday's kickoff, BYU had played 18 games against schools ranked in the top 25. Their record in those games: three wins, 14 losses and one tie. Ty Detmer, for all his notoriety, was 1-6-1 as a starter against the top teams.
The three wins included, of course, the Detmer-directed 28-21 win over No. 1-ranked Miami in the second game of the 1990 season - a win sufficient to cover all of Detmer's other shortcomings and slingshot him to the Heisman Trophy at the end of that season.
Besides that Miami win, BYU's other post-national title triumphs over highly regarded foes came against Colorado in the 1988 Freedom Bowl (a 20-17 come-from-behind win) and Washington in 1985, when the Huskies fell in Cougar Stadium 31-3.
The thud the Huskies made in that game seven years ago remained the only significant tromping - by definition, a "tromping" is a win that looks easy, is never actually close if you don't count 0-0 at kickoff, and creates traffic snarl-ups by the end of the third quarter - for BYU over a ranked opponent until yesterday . . . when Penn State was made to look even worse than Washington.
The Cougars made up for lost time and then some. Vengeance was theirs on Halloween Day. Everything that could bounce right, did. Ryan Hancock threw ropes all day long. Even his interception was a work of art. Kalin Hall and Jamal Willis looked like backs straight out of, well, straight out of Penn State.
On those rare occasions when the offense didn't work, Brad Hunter's punts were interfering with cable TV satellite routes.
On defense, BYU twice stopped Penn State drives inside the 10-yard line - once at the seven, once at the two. The Lions' only real touchdown came by mere inches after four straight charges that began at the four in the fourth quarter. Their second touchdown was an afterthought, when BYU was looking past Penn State toward New Mexico next week.
Joe Paterno couldn't believe his glasses. Two hundred and forty-six wins and now this. The last time one of his Penn State teams got beat this badly they were in somewhere like South Bend or Ann Arbor and at least they had an inkling.
Meanwhile, up in the press box, the representatives from the Blockbuster Bowl - who made history last spring by inviting a team to come to their bowl before the season started - kept checking their pulses. There aren't many worse ways to spend Halloween Day than this: Watching the team you've pledged to spend New Year's Day with - and promised them around $2 million for the privilege - lose by two touchdowns to a team ranked around 63rd.
But for 66,016 fans in Cougar Stadium, there weren't many better ways to spend Halloween Day than watching a team that had already, in eight games, lost two quarterbacks and four games - including last week's rather disheartening 42-16 defeat at Notre Dame - bounce back and not only beat a somebody, but make it look easy.
And then, for dessert, to listen to the losing coach, in this case the estimable Joe Paterno, say, "I told LaVell (Edwards) at the end of the game, `thanks for keeping it close.' "
For all their strides the past 20 years, the Cougars haven't heard enough of that from people out of their league.