Unbelievable as it sounds, the Utah football team was celebrating the magic numbers 34 and 31 after another football win over BYU Saturday afternoon.
The Utes scored 34 points for the third straight year against the Cougars to clinch their first Western Athletic Conference title in . . . that's right, 31 years."Thirty-four points - it's kind of freaky really," said Ute coach Ron McBride, who celebrated on the field for a good half hour before finally making it to the locker room for a post-game speech. "What a great win. This is the first time in 31 years that we've won the WAC, and we did it on this field against a great football team."
On this day there was little chance of the famous 34-31 score from the past two years being repeated after the way the Utes dominated the contest from start to finish.
The Utes controlled the ball (41 minutes to 19), put constant pressure on BYU quarterback Steve Sarkisian, forcing him into an array of bad passes, and played nearly flawless offensive football with 445 yards and zero turnovers.
Perhaps no Ute was more excited about the Ute victory and co-championship than receiver Henry Lusk, who has been a part of the Utah program for six years and who came back from a disappointing injury that kept him out of last year's 10-2 season.
"This is what I came back for this year, a WAC championship," said Lusk, who scored Utah's third touchdown on a 4-yard pass from Mike Fouts. "Nobody thought we were going to do anything like this. It's the most exciting feeling in the world."
Another player who has been around the Ute program for a long time is safety Jeff Kirkman.
"It's always nice to beat BYU, but when it's for a piece of the WAC championship, it's huge," he said.
CLOUDY BOWL: The Holiday Bowl picture is a little clearer than it was before the game, but it's still a complicated mess that may not be decided until late on Nov. 25 when Air Force and Hawaii complete their game.
Going into the Saturday's contest, there were 17 different scenarios for possible WAC ties. Utah's win eliminated six of the tiebreaker scenarios. Of the 11 remaining possibilities, four favor Utah going to the Holiday Bowl and one favors BYU.
In a nutshell, the Utes' best chance to go to the Holiday Bowl is for BYU to lose to Fresno State next week and have San Diego State beat Colorado State on the 25th. They also could get into the Holiday Bowl if Hawaii were to defeat San Diego State late Saturday night and then the Aztecs knocked off CSU next week. The Utes also win two-way tiebreakers against BYU and Air Force.
BYU has one possibility of going to the Holiday Bowl if it defeats Fresno, San Diego wins both of its remaining games and Hawaii knocks off Air Force next week.
NO DYE: One of Utah's best strategies was to keep punts away from James Dye, the nation's leading punt returner. Dan Pulsipher punted four times, but never in Dye's direction. One punt went in the end zone and the other three went out of bounds.
Ute special teams coach Sean McNabb said he finally came up with a solution for stopping Dye late Thursday night.
"I finally went to sleep soundly at 1:30 in the morning after I realized that if Colorado State, Wyoming, San Diego and Tulsa hadn't punted to Dye, they probably would have beat BYU," said McNabb. "He's an awesome talent and if we could avoid having him be a factor in the game we could win. It worked."
So, would the Utes have punted away from Dye no matter where they were on the field, even if it was from the end zone? "Yes, yes, yes," replied McNabb.
OUTSIDE CHANCE: The Copper Bowl remains a possibility for either Utah or BYU, but not a strong one. Mike Hoffman from the Copper Bowl board of directors was in the BYU press box observing the game and being very non-committal.
The rumor is that Air Force is the Copper Bowl's top choice followed by Colorado State and San Diego State. Air Force was eliminated from any chance at the Holiday Bowl by Utah's win.