BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Ho-hum, LaVell Edwards and the Cougars have got those steadily depressing post-bowl blues, and so what else is new? In case you missed it, Edwards and his gang rolled all over the University of Virginia in Tuesday night's All American Bowl — and lost. Score it: 22-16. The Cougars will be home for Christmas — you can count on them — but forget the ho, ho, ho and mistletoe. Have you seen Edwards' revised Christmas list? "Dear Santa, please bring me a goal-line offense and grant David Miles another year of eligibility and, if you don't mind, a bowl win some time in this decade would be nice."
The Cougars nearly claimed one Tuesday night on Birmingham's Legion Field. Sean Covey passed for miles through the Virginia defense, which never could stop BYU — until it counted most. The Cougs punted once all night. They also saw potential scoring drives end on missed field goals of 51 and 47 yards, a dropped pass in the end zone and not one, but two, goal-line stands.
And still the Cougars could have won the game. With 5:30 left in the game, they got the ball back trailing 22-16. There was plenty of time and they were on a roll, but on fourth-and-one at midfield, Covey elected to run on a naked bootleg option, only to be stopped 2 feet short of the first-down marker by defensive end Sean Scott. Or was he?
"I remember looking at the market and stretching beyond it," said Covey. "The ball was in front of the market. It was a bad spot (by the referee)."
Our other expert witness, Scott, saw it — surprise — the other way: "When I tackled him, I knew I had stopped him."
Either way, it was the game's decisive play and the crowning moment in a banner season for Virginia. "Maybe we got lucky (tonight)," said Virginia coach George Welsh, whose team finished with an 8-4 record and bright hopes for the future. They started 11 freshmen and sophomores Tuesday night. When somebody tried to credit Welsh, he replied, "I was coaching last year when we were 3-8." As for the Cougars, who slipped to 9-4 after winning six straight games, they once again were foiled in December. Haven't we seen this before?
Edwards' bowl record over the past 14 years now stands at 4-8 — a stretch in which he has averaged 9.5 wins a season. Eight of those 12 games have been decided by a TD or less.
All of the omens were there to see as plain as day on Tuesday. Exactly nine years ago to the day, Welsh guided Navy to a win over BYU in the Holiday Bowl by a nearly identical score (23-16). And wasn't it Legion Field where Bear Bryant had coached Alabama to so many triumphs, only to go down to defeat repeatedly in bowl games?
It is becoming an increasingly sore subject for Edwards, whose teams have now lost three straight bowl games. "Bear Bryant lost something like eight (bowls) in a row and Bo Schembechler lost 10 and they hung around a long time and did a decent job," he said.
Edwards and his staff had pulled out all the stops for this game. They even pulled out some uncharacteristic trick plays, including the Daffy Duck formation — better known around BYU as The Creature — which features two players wide left, two players in the back field, wide receiver Miles hiking the ball sideways, and everybody else wide right. It was the same formation the University of Utah made famous this season, but the Cougars claim they have had it in the playbook for years.
"We've been practicing it since (offensive coordinator) Doug Scovil was here (in 1982), but we've never used it," said Edwards. "It's been a long season, and we felt we needed something to pick the kids up. They had fun practicing it."
The Cougars used the formation three times and gained 21 yards with the thing, but mostly they stuck with what they do best: the dropback pass, ad infinitum. Covey threw 61 passes and completed 37 of them for 394 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Miles, a slender 6-foot-2 senior, caught 10 passes all by himself for 188 yards.
"They played a three-deep zone all night, and for some reason they put the strong safety on the weak side," said Miles, explaining how he got so open all night.
Said Scott, "Our defense's philosophy is that we bend but we don't break." Indeed, the Cougars outgained Virginia 489 yards to 349 but had little to show for it. At one point they had produced 350 yards — and just three points.
"We kept ourselves out of the end zones," said Edwards.
With a lot of help from Virginia.
On the Cougars' first possession of the game, they had first-and-goal inside the 4-yard line — and had to settle for a 20-yard Leonard Chitty field goal. The key play came on third down, when Covey found tight end Darren Handley along in the corner of the end zone but hit him in the worst of places: the hands.
The Cougars repeated the act on the opening series of the third quarter when they had three cracks at the goal inside the 4-yard line and came away with nothing. On fourth down, a quick hitch pass to Matt Bellini was batted away in the end zone by freshman cornerback Tony Covington.
"The guy just made a great play," said Bellini. "The ball was right there, but he got a finger on it."
Such problems are nothing new at BYU. "We've had trouble scoring from inside the five all year long," said Miles. Indeed, that's the reason BYU added the so-called Thunder formation (really a power I) to its playbook at mid-season. But then the Cougars lost half of their Thunder backfield when linebacker/fullback Thor Salanoa and halfback Mile O'Brien went down with season-ending knee injuries in the regular-season finale against Colorado State.
"That really hurt us not to have those guys in there," said Edwards.
The Cougars tried to revamp their Thunder, adding 6-foot-6, 300-pound Eli Herring and 205-pound reserve quarterback Bob Jensen to the play. But the first time the Cougs tried it, on third-and-one in the second quarter, Jensen got stuffed for a loss of one yard. The Cougs sent the play in later in the game but then changed their minds and yanked it.
"We have got to get more effective down there on the goal line," said Edwards. "We need to spend more time on it in the off-season."
Not to mention stopping the big play. Trailing 3-0, the Cavaliers struck quickly. Quarterback Scott Secules, who somehow won the MVP trophy by completing 10 of 19 passes for 162 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions, scored on a three-yard keep to make it 7-3. Early in the second quarter the Cavs scored again, this time with shocking ease. They went 66 yards in four plays behind the running of Kevin Morgan, who scored on a 25-yard run to make it 14-3. It would have been worse except Rodney Rice intercepted a Secules pass in the end zone and safety Scott Peterson recovered a Marcus Wilson fumble at the BYU three-yard line.
Then the third quarter belonged to the Cougars. They had the ball for all but five plays and two minutes of the quarter and finally managed to crack the end zones — on an eight-yard run by Fred Whittingham. A muffed PAT attempt left it 14-9.
And, just as suddenly, Virginia, which gained just 112 yards in the second half, awoke. Star wide receiver John Ford, who had been held in check all night, shook Peterson with a move to the post, then turned outside heading for the corner of the end zone.
"I knew I was wide open right when I made my move," said Ford, who hauled in Secules' pass for a 22-yard touchdown. A PAT pass from Secules to Wilson made it 22-9 with 11:17 left in the game.
BYU had to answer back, and now. Two passes of 20 and 16 yards to Miles put the Cougars in close, and this time they scored. Covey threw a one-yard TD pass to Whittingham to make it 22-16 with 7:09 remaining.
Less than 22 minutes later, BYU got the ball back at its own 36, but before the ball could even be snapped, wide receiver Rich Zayas was whistled for illegal procedure. It became costly when, four plays later, Covey was stopped by Scott 2 feet short of a first down.
The Cougars got one more chance, with 1:18 remaining at their own 25. But Covey missed on four pass attempts.
"I really feel I didn't come through there," said Covey.
After the game, Edwards was just emerging from a post-game press conference with his famous frown intact when he was approached by yet another reporter. "I have a question for you," she said. "Are you still going to have a merry Christmas?" With that, Patti Edwards, his wife and a some-time reporter for the Provo Herald, gave him a hug and a kiss — but never did get an answer to her question. It could be a blue Christmas.