To future football fans, Saturday's annual instate tiff between Utah and BYU might appear to be like all the other games in their 88-year rivalry. After all, the Cougars walked off the Rice Stadium field with yet another win over their northern rivals (ho-hum) and into the locker room for their customary post-Ute game ceremony, which consists of accepting congratulations for a league championship and a bid to a bowl game.
It's all routine stuff, but in many ways Saturday's game was one to remember. It was the day that LaVell Edwards actually unfolded his arms and lost his cool. It was the day for the Rage of Drage. It was the day of the Great Snowball Caper. It was the day for tight end touchdown passes. It was the day Jamal Willis, surely a future star of national prominence, broke the 1,000-yard mark for the first time. It was the day another BYU quarterback left the field on a stretcher.The game was everything you didn't expect it to be right down to the outcome. With Utah fielding its best team in years and holding the home-field advantage, this was supposed to be the year the Utes gave the Cougars a good fight. It never happened. The Cougars won 31-22 and it was never that close.
BYU led 24-zip at halftime and 31-0 at the end of the third quarter. Utah struck for three touchdowns in the final 10 minutes of the game, two of them against BYU reserves, but by then it was merely a case of salvaging respect in the regular-season finale.
"It was a very satisfying win and a satisfying season in many respects," said BYU coach LaVell Edwards. "We are conference champs again, and that was our No. 1 goal."
Who would have thought they'd come so far after a 1-3 start? Since then the Cougars have won seven of eight games, and by Monday they very well could return to the national rankings. For the record, it is the 15th time in 21 years under Edwards that the Cougars have won or tied for the Western Athletic Conference championship - and the 19th time they have beaten Utah in that time.
After the game, representatives from the Copper and Aloha bowls extended official invitations to the Cougars in their locker room, all contingent on the outcome of other WAC games. Later it was learned that Fresno State had beaten San Diego State, which meant the Cougars would go to the Aloha Bowl - unless Hawaii lost to Wyoming late Saturday night in Honolulu, in which case the Cougs would return to the Holiday Bowl.
The question now is how will the Cougars fare at quarterback in their bowl game (see story below)? For the third time this season, BYU's starting quarterback was knocked out of action by a major injury. With BYU leading 31-8 in the fourth quarter, Ryan Hancock tore a ligament in his right knee while running for a first down. Come bowl time the Cougars will start their fourth quarterback of the season - sophomore Tom Young (career statistics: three pass attempts). He'll be backed up by two walk-ons.
It was an anticlimactic end to a day that otherwise belonged to BYU, give or take a tantrum or two and a few thousand snowballs. A capacity crowd of 33,348 fans gathered in chilly Rice Stadium to see a game that nearly turned into a winter carnival. Ute officials managed to clear Friday's snow off the field, but not between the rows of seats, which provided the predictable ammunition for Ute students.
Utah fans pummeled BYU players with snowballs from the moment they walked onto the field. Nobody seemed to notice until the second quarter, when the Utes were down 17-0 and the students decided to take matters into their own hands. The snowballs rained on the Cougars as soon as they moved the ball in front of the student section, with one of them striking center Garry Pay full in the face. Ute players urged their fans to quit but to no avail. Finally, officials warned fans over the public address system that the teams would be taken from the field if the snowballs didn't stop, but that did little to deter them.
At halftime, Edwards discussed the matter with referees. "It really bothered me," said Edwards. "It wasn't safe. It really was no laughing matter. I told them (the referees) that they've got to do something."
The snowballs kept coming (Edwards flipped on his hood for protection), but the BYU lead snowballed anyway. In the final minute of the first quarter, Hancock completed a 20-yard pass to tight end Byron Rex, and on the next play Willis ran four yards for a touchdown.
Midway through the second quarter, having taken a 10-0 lead following Dave Lauder's 42-yard field goal, BYU struck again with a rare trick play. All season long the Cougars have practiced a tight end pass by Rex, a former part-time high school quarterback who loves to show off his arm in practice.
"Every week Coach promised we'd use it, but we never did," he said.
But faced with a zone defense on second down at the 19-yard line, Coach Norm Chow sent the play down from the press box. Hancock faked a handoff to the running backs going left and gave the ball to Rex on the end around going to the right. Rex gave his primary receiver, Otis Sterling, one look in the corner, but he was covered, so he threw a hard strike to Eric Drage who had curled between two defenders in the end zone. Score: 17-0.
"I told the coaches, `I'm ahead of (reserve quarterback) John Walsh now,' " said Rex.
"We're so conservative, I couldn't believe they called it," said Drage. "It was a great call."
It was only the second trick play of the season for the Cougars, and their last of the afternoon. They returned to their effective mix of the pass and run. Hancock completed 16 of 27 passes for 198 yards. With fullback Kalin Hall still slowed by an ankle injury, most of the running fell to Willis, the team's smooth 6-foot-3 halfback. Willis rushed for 148 yards on 28 carries and finished the season with 1,004 yards, making him only the third BYU player in history to surpass the 1,000-yard rushing mark.
With Willis running and Hancock passing, BYU moved 86 yards in 14 plays to score another touchdown late in the half, this time on a six-yard fastball from Hancock, the Cougar baseball pitcher, to Rex.
"I just put my body in front of it and hoped I didn't get knocked over," said Rex.
Predictably, frustration began to take its toll. The inevitable happened in the final minute of the half, when Utah's Cedric Crawford made a late hit on BYU's Otis Sterling. While officials were sorting things out, Drage went out of his way to shove Crawford. BYU coaches and players rushed to break up a confrontation. Edwards scolded Drage. Drage said something back. Then the unthinkable happened. The normally unflappable Edwards shoved Drage from behind, pushing him toward the BYU bench.
"We talked about it (on the sideline in the third quarter)," said Drage. "He told me I've got to keep control of my emotions. I could cost the team a penalty."
It wasn't the first or last such outburst from Drage. Earlier this season he smacked a BYU trainer during one tantrum, and near the end of Saturday's game he had a heated confrontation with assistant coach Robbie Bosco.
For their part, the Utah defense shut out BYU the rest of the day, but the Cougars' special teams managed to score a touchdown early in the third quarter when Travis Hall blocked a punt and recovered it in the end zone.
And where was the Utah offense during all this time? On the run. The BYU defense, long nothing more than a warmup act in Provo, has been dominant the second half of the season and never more than on Saturday. The Cougars held the Utes to 79 yards in the first half. Tackle Randy Brock was a one-man gang, collecting three sacks, three tackles for loss and one pass deflection. The secondary batted down 14 passes.
The Utes finally scored with 10 minutes left in the game on a 34-yard pass from Frank Dolce to Greg Hooks. They scored twice more in the final 31/2 minutes, on a four-yard pass to Joe Welch and a three-yard run by Dolce. But it was all too little too late.
For the Utes, 6-5, the game marked the end of a rocky, unpredictable season. "This team plays bad one quarter and great the next quarter," said Dolce. "I couldn't understand this team. And I'm a psychology major."