Consistently inconsistent.
That oxymoronic phrase best describes BYU's 1997 football season, which the Cougars finishd 6-5 overall, missing a postseason bowl for the second time in three years.Injuries, inexperience, ineffectiveness all played a part in the Y.'s woes and together led to that other "in-" word, one repeated by BYU coach LaVell Edwards in his postseason assessment after the Cougars closed their season with a 20-14 home loss to Utah.
"The inconsistency has been the problem all year, but I don't know how much longer you can attribute that to youth," said Edwards, who loses just eight seniors - all starters - from his two-deep '97 roster. "It was a different thing each week."
Those different things included a Y. version of musical chairs at quarterback; injuries at key or thin positions; and an early season auto accident resulting in the death of one player and the absence of two teammates.
Dustin Johnson, BYU's departing fullback-turned-tight-end, labeled the season "unchar-ac-ter-is-tic."
"A lot of it had to do with inconsistency," he said. "We were never able to put a total game together."
The closest the Cougars came to a "complete game" was a 13-10 mid-September victory at Arizona State. Even then, BYU flirted with fumbleitis on special teams and struggled to score despite racking up yardage.
Other than the season-opening 42-20 blowout by Washington and the 31-10 rout of lowly Texas Christian (in which BYU needed three second-half TDs to break a 10-10 deadlock), the Cougars seemed never completely out of any game - but never completely in control, either.
To wit: In a 27-14 loss to Rice, BYU couldn't move the ball in the second half or capitalize on two rare fourth-quarter takeaways. In season-ending losses to New Mexico (38-28) and Utah (20-14), the Cougars couldn't quite catch up despite staying within striking distance.
Conversely, the Y. needed overtime to beat SMU (19-16), a late-game rally to down Utah State (42-35) and an outscore-the-opposition attitude against Tulsa (49-39) in games that went down to the wire.
The 6-5 outcome was one of the worst records in the 26-season Edwards Era. BYU finished the regular season with an identical 6-5 mark in 1993, QB John Walsh's sophomore season. But that was the year the Cougars followed a four-loss midseason skid with a three-win streak to tie for the WAC championship and qualify for the Holiday Bowl (where the Cougars lost 28-21 to Ohio State to end up at 6-6).
Before '93, one would have to go back to 1975 to find the last time a BYU team either won only six regular-season games or suffered as many as five regular-season defeats. That year - the sophomore season of still-emerging quarterback Gifford Nielsen - the Cougars won three of their final four games for a 6-5 record and fourth place in the eight-team WAC.
This season, BYU dropped three of its four November games - the worst conclusion of a season for an Edwards team - and finished fifth in the eight-team Mountain Division and tied for ninth among all 16 WAC schools.
The Cougars managed just 22.7 points a game, a little better than half of the 40.8 regular-season average from the previous season. "We probably averaged the least amount of points in BYU history," bemoaned sophomore quarterback Kevin Feterik.
Not quite, but it was the lowest scoring average in the past two-plus decades since - you guessed it - the 1975 season.
Scoring was just symptomatic of the challenges on offense. BYU failed to gain more than 100 yards rushing as a team in five games and couldn't even break double digits in two. The Cougars were outpassed in three games and had four games where they failed to reach 200 aerial yards - including a pair of sub-100 outings.
Injuries kept Feterik, junior Paul Shoemaker and freshman Drew Miller shuffling in and out at quarterback. Also sidelined were fullback Kalani Sitake and backup tight end Nate Foreman, resulting in Johnson getting bounced back and forth between the two positions.
The slant from senior wide receiver Ben Cahoon? "I felt like we played all season with one hand tied behind our backs," he said. "The trouble was, it happened to be our throwing arm."
Senior tailback Brian McKenzie provided a good share of the few Y. highlights, leading scoring with a dozen touchdowns and rushing for 1,004 yards for the season and a two-year total of 1,954 yards - the best consecutive-season performance in BYU history.
The young Y. defense performed with a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality, holding four opponents to 16 points or less while allowing another foursome to rack up 35 points or more. Takeaways were infrequent - just four interceptions (two in the last game) and seven fumble recoveries. The Cougars collected 22 sacks, while opponents tallied 38.
A three-game suspension of senior cornerback Omarr Morgan hindered the Cougar secondary early, as did the opening-game sidelining of starting safety Chris Ellison. Then came the accident that claimed the life of defensive back Terrence Harvey, with DBs Tony Field and Roderick Foreman (injured hand) also involved.
Besides McKenzie, Johnson and Cahoon, the offense loses senior starting linemen Matt Cox and Jason Anderson. Departing with Morgan are defensive starters Ben Cook at cornerback and Spencer Reid at outside linebacker. Another graduating senior is deep snapper Brandon Condie.