PONTIAC, Mich. — There was a total Y2K disaster Monday at the Pontiac Silverdome.
Basically, the BYU offense experienced the equivalent of a power outage. The Cougars' game plan was short-circuited, their motor stopped running, their supply of composure wore thin, their resilient senior quarterback was finally overthrown.
And Marshall law was in full effect.
By the time the clock struck 0:00, the Thundering Herd had trampled BYU, 21-3, in the third annual Motor City Bowl before a bowl record crowd of 44,863.
"To hold a great offensive team like BYU to only three points is just great," said Marshall coach Bob Pruett. Except one couldn't tell that this isn't a great offensive team, especially by the Cougars' high standards? Not even a gutty effort from freshman Luke Staley, playing with a torn ACL and other injuries, could help BYU.
Just how bad was it? The Cougars (8-4) allowed eight sacks, rushed for minus-16 yards, gained just 67 yards in the entire second half and failed to score a touchdown for only the second time in 13 years. That's the way the BYU offense, which revolutionized the college passing game, closed out the decade and the century.
It's not what coach LaVell Edwards expected. "I liked our chances going into the game. I honestly thought we would execute better," he said. "Our pass protection broke down. (Marshall) did a nice job of attacking our vulnerable areas. I was disappointed in the number of balls we dropped . . .
"We were unable to make plays and they made a couple. That was the difference in the ball game. It was very disappointing, but credit Marshall."
What happened against the Herd was a repeat of what happened in the final two regular season games against Wyoming and Utah, only magnified.
Marshall declared open season on senior QB Kevin Feterik, who left the game early in the third quarter after suffering a hairline crack in his collarbone. Then the Thundering Herd teed off an his successors, Bret Engemann and Charlie Peterson.
Speaking of Engemann and Peterson, who are in the running to replace Feterik in 2000, who's next up for BYU? No. 1 Florida State in the Pigskin Classic next August in Jacksonville. Gulp.
Meanwhile, No. 11 Marshall capped a perfect 13-0 season with the victory and extended its NCAA-leading winning streak to 17 games. And the Herd took another giant step toward validating its place in the college football world.
Senior running back Doug Chapman was named bowl MVP after scoring all three Herd touchdowns, including an 87-yard third-quarter gallop. Marshall gained 147 yards rushing yards for the game.
The Herd, champions of the Mid-American Conference, certainly earned Edwards' respect. "I'm going to vote them in the top 10 (in the final polls)," he said.
"We're a top 10 team," Pruett said. "This is our second undefeated season in four years and we did what we needed to do to win every game on our schedule."
Quarterback Chad Pennington closed out a stellar career with less-than-stellar numbers: 17-of-28, 207 yards, one TD and one interception against a BYU defense that stifled his rifle arm for much of the game.
But Feterik would have loved to have just stayed in the whole game. Late in the second quarter, Feterik appeared to be yelling and gesturing in disgust at right guard Matt Johnson after being sacked by cornerback Terrance Tarpley. It was on that play that Feterik was injured. At halftime he was X-rayed, which revealed a deep shoulder bruise. A few plays into the second half, Feterik was done.
He would not talk about his tirade, but his relationship with the O-line was tenuous from the start. "The whole season I was getting killed like that," Feterik said. "(Marshall) had a good pass rush, but all the teams we've played have had a good pass rush."
"Kevin's gotten on us a few times this year. I can't blame him," said center Jimmy Richards. "We had a lot of breakdowns. It's fair to blame us. We didn't do our jobs today."
Cougar cornerback Brian Gray said he observed some dissension among the coaches and players on the BYU offense. "I saw some minor arguments," he said. "I didn't see any leadership out there. I think that was a problem."
The Cougars all but abandoned the shotgun, which they employed most of the season. Edwards said the change was made in an attempt to offset the Herd's ability to apply pressure to Feterik. "We wanted to use more play-action to slow down the rush," he said. "It caught up with us at the end."
While the offense struggled, the defense kept BYU in the game. The Cougars took an opening 3-0 lead on an Owen Pochman field goal and trailed only 7-3 at the half. But in a span of 1:44 in the second half, Marshall broke the game open with two Chapman TDs.
"Some unfortunate things happened to us," said linebacker Rob Morris, referring, among other things, to a interception by safety Jared Lee, who then lost the ball right back to Marshall. "We felt like we were hanging in there pretty tough with them. We felt like we were playing as bad as we possibly could play and we were only down 7-3 at half. We thought, Well, thank goodness that's over. It can't get any worse. Then it did."
Like his other teammates on the defense, linebacker Justin Ena didn't point fingers at the offense.
"We had some letdowns, too. You can't put it all on the offense," he said. "Everyone has bad days. We could have had a better day on both sides of the ball, but we didn't."
Richards said he might have an explanation for BYU's late-season debacle.
"I think we might have lost a little bit of desire to play," he said "It seemed like at the beginning of the year we were so fired up. We made mistakes on the offensive line, but it wasn't for lack of effort. Same can be said about everyone. Seems there was always a big play or two that would just bust the game open for us and we lost that the last three or four games. I don't know why."
Ena said desire was not a problem for the defense. "A lot of us needed to focus a little bit more," he said. "A lot of us had the desire to win and play hard. Some people I guess didn't catch on to it."
The Cougar defense didn't quit against Marshall, said defensive end Setema Gali.
"We never gave up. We kept believing," said Gali, who recorded three sacks. "There's miracles that happen in games, but there were none for us today."