In an early November game, an 8-0 Utah football team, ranked in the Top 10, will take on a New Mexico team with a losing record Saturday evening at University Stadium in Albuquerque.
Haven't we been here before?
For the Utah football team, the answer is an unfortunate yes.
The Utes went to Albuquerque on Nov. 5, 1994, sporting a perfect 8-0 record to play a 3-6 New Mexico team only to see their perfect season go up in flames.
Behind quarterback Stoney Case, the Lobos came from an 18-point deficit to shock the mistake-prone Utes 23-21 and ruin their hopes of an unbeaten season and ultimately a WAC title and Holiday Bowl berth.
Utah's defensive coordinator at the time, the late Fred Whittingham, was blunt in his assessment of the Utes' play that day.
"We were terrible offensively, we were terrible on special teams and we were terrible defensively," he said. "In all three phases of the game, we stunk."
Fourteen years later, current Ute coach Kyle Whittingham, who was the defensive line coach of the '94 team, remembers that game clearly.
"Oh I sure do," he said. "We jumped out to a big lead and then we kind of fell apart in the second half and didn't make any plays."
So what happened in '94? Was the team overconfident? Underprepared? Overhyped?
"I can't give you my perception on the mindset of the team — that was 15 years ago," Whittingham said. But he insists his team won't be looking past New Mexico.
"Historically that's a tough place for us to play," he said. "We've got to stay focused."
One of the leaders on the 1994 team was Jason Jones, who now serves as the president of the Utah Blaze indoor pro football team. Jones was the punter on that team and though he can't recall the team looking past the Lobos, he acknowledges it could have happened.
"We had a real solid core of senior leadership and there was nothing different about the way we prepared," he said. "But there's a tendency to get a little ahead of yourselves. Perhaps overconfidence sets in. You start overlooking your opponent, get very comfortable and forget to play for 60 minutes."
Whether the Utes were overconfident or too comfortable, they certainly did forget to play for 60 minutes on that sunny November afternoon.
New Mexico had a good offense, but a lousy defense, ranked third-from-the-bottom in the nation. It showed in the first quarter when the Utes ran up nearly 200 yards and jumped out to a 14-0 lead. Mike McCoy, the current quarterbacks coach for the Carolina Panthers, hit future NFL regular Kevin Dyson with a 56-yard touchdown pass and Charlie Brown ran 8 yards for a touchdown.
After a Lobo field goal, Brown scored again from 12 yards out and an apparent TD on a 39-yard interception return by Kareem Leary was called back because of a penalty or it would have been 28-3. Before halftime, the Lobos got untracked and scored a touchdown and two-point conversion to cut the lead to 21-11.
New Mexico dominated the third quarter, holding the ball for 11 minutes but only had a field goal to show for it, making it 21-14 heading into the final quarter. Early in the quarter Ute defensive back Harold Lusk had a chance to stop the scoring drive by falling on a fumble, but he tried to pick it up and run, only to see the Lobos recover.
On the first play of the fourth quarter, New Mexico scored, but Nathan Vail's PAT sailed wide left, leaving the Utes ahead 21-20.
The Ute offense finally awoke, but three drives into Lobo territory ended with a punt, a fumble and a missed 29-yard field goal by Dan Pulsipher ... Of the latter, Jones remembers a poor snap that came dribbling out, which threw off the timing.
With four minutes left, all the Ute defense, ranked in the top 10 in the nation, had to do was keep the Lobos out of field goal range. It was 4th and 3 at the Lobo 27, when Case found Gavin Pearlman in the flat. Utah defensive back Keith Harrison came up to tackle and missed, leaving Pearlman a wide-open field and he rambled 56 yards up the sidelines to the Ute 17.
The Lobos used some clock, picked up another first down and with 32 seconds left, Vail kicked a 22-yard field goal. When the game ended, Lobo fans rushed the field and tore down the goalposts in celebration.
"We had several mental lapses that were really uncharacteristic of that team," said Jones, referring to the penalties, the missed field goal, the failure to fall on the fumble and the late missed tackle.
"The further you go in the season, the bigger the target gets on our backs and it gets incrementally harder," Jones said. "You are their season and perhaps that's what happened to us at New Mexico."
The Utes still had a chance to get a piece of the WAC title but had a similar meltdown the following week, blowing a large lead at Air Force and losing 40-33. Utah did come back to beat BYU the following week and Arizona in the Freedom Bowl to finish in the Top 10 with a 10-2 record.
Ute players who were asked about it Monday had never heard about the 1994 meltdown but figured they would this week.
"(Whittingham) finds something to get us riled up and keep us focused," said defensive back Brice McCain. "I'm sure we'll hear about it every practice this week."
Quarterback Brian Johnson said most of the current Ute players were probably in pre-school in 1994 but says they can learn from it. "As an athlete, you should try and take advantage of any extra little motivation," he said
So will Whittingham be bringing up the 1994 game as a cautionary tale this week?
"Oh yes, absolutely," he said. "You draw from experience and use everything you can."
Repeating history?
Year ... Date of game ... Utah record ... N. Mex. record ... Utah ranking ... Final score
2008 ... Nov. 1 ... 8-0 ... 4-5 ... No. 10 ... ???
1994 ... Nov. 5 ... 8-0 ... 3-6 ... No. 8 ... 23-21, UNM
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