Moments before Ute quarterback Brian Johnson slung his first pass against BYU in November, he stood on the field next to his family. The crowd was loud and emotions were brimming. He and 18 other seniors were about to play their final home game in Rice-Eccles Stadium, in the epic battle of their college careers.
"He gave me a big hug," recalls Johnson's mother, Shonna. "He was emotional, and he just kept saying 'We're gonna do this, we're gonna do this....'"
Shonna Johnson has made the trip from Baytown, Texas, for almost every Utah game. Like the trusted compadre to the field general, she has been her son's number one on speed dial.
"We talk every day, sometimes twice a day," says Brian Johnson. "I don't know where I'd be without her."
The senior QB talks about his mother with a respect and affection that is familiar around Utah football. Defensive end Paul Kruger talks to his mom, Jennifer, every day, too.
"She's amazing. She just understands, and she's been a huge support my whole life," says Kruger.
No, they are not mamas boys. The apron strings were cut long ago. But in the harsh world of Division I football, mom is something like the krazy glue that keeps each shiny airplane soaring.
"What's good about my mom, she knows everything about sports," says Ute linebacker Stevenson Sylvester. His mother, Angela, played college basketball for Southern Utah University and helped coach many of his teams growing up.
"She just said you never know what's going to be your calling, so just do whatever you can, try to do everything and be good at what you do. Try to be the best at what you do."
How Utah became the best in the Mountain West Conference this season, boasting an undefeated record that earned the Utes a BCS Sugar Bowl berth, is an intriguing tale.
With one of the most diverse rosters in college football — ethnically, geographically and religiously — the very differences that could have been Utah's undoing, turned out to be one of the team's best weapons.
When everybody's different, nobody is.
Coaches focused on the shared values of hard work and desire. Starting positions went to players with a common mindset who, no matter their background, wanted to win for the guy next to him. Within that framework, MUFPs — Mothers of Utah Football Players — helped their sons bring their best game.
Free safety Robert Johnson's mother, Wanda, drove through the night from south central Los Angeles so she could make the noon kickoff against Colorado State. It was the first time Robert had seen her in months.
"He saw me and about picked me up off the ground," she remembers about their reunion. "I'm 5-foot-1 and he's tall, like his father. Every time I watch him play, he reminds me of my husband."
Robert's father, Wayne Johnson, was robbed and murdered when Robert was five years old, leaving Wanda to raise their young family. To make ends meet she worked two jobs, roofing by day and unloading trailers at night.
"When I worked nights, his older brothers helped out. We helped each other. As long as you keep working and don't give up, they keep working and trying," she says. "Robert was very determined, and when he puts his mind to something, he does it. He's just a hard-working, kind-hearted, good kid with a dream to play football.... My only worry is if he gets hurt."
Worry.
For MUFPs, that single word represents a powder keg of emotion. It is like a constant companion, and the pre-game prayer is almost universal: Keep him healthy, help him play well, let the team win.
Running back Matt Asiata's mother, Fualole, was in the stands at Oregon State the night her son suffered a double fracture to his right leg in the 2007 season opener — his first game as a Ute.
"He went in the ambulance, and I was crying. We all went to the hospital," she remembers. "The only thing he told me was that he was never going to stop (playing football)."
A son's resolve became a mother's ambition in that Oregon hospital room. Fualole visited Matt every day through his rehab, massaging the weakened muscles, battered bones and surgery scars so he could eventually return to the football field.
Jennifer Kruger knows a thing or two about emergency rooms. Both her Ute sons, Paul and David, ended up there after being attacked on a Salt Lake City street last January. David was released with a broken nose, but Paul underwent surgery for a stab wound to the stomach.
"It just didn't seem real.... We weren't sure how everything was going to unfold," she recalls.
The feeling was all too familiar for the Orem mother. Nearly a decade earlier, she had sat at Paul's bedside in a different hospital, after a jeep rollover accident. Then, he spent days on life support and surgeons removed one of his kidneys.
"Paul has a will power and tenacity that comes into play," says Jennifer.
While she was by his side through his recovery last winter, his Utah teammates looked after her. "To have all those young men come and put their arms around me, cry with me ... this is a special team."
Call it fate or some other force that brought them together, this year's Utah football team and the mothers who support them are bonded not only by the games' final outcomes, but by the 101 moments that happened in between.
Wide receiver Bradon Godfrey's mother, Heidi, will never forget the Oregon State game.
"He laid out and got that ball," she recalls of her son's touchdown catch from Brian Johnson that ignited the Utes' comeback against the Beavers, setting up Louie Sakoda's game-winning field goal.
"Mary (Sakoda) and I were next to each other and we could hardly breathe, and we just said, 'We did it!'"
There they stood together, the mothers of the hour.
"As the fans raced out there on the field, to see my son emerge from that crowd and come toward me, climb over that wall and hug me — that was a moment in time," says Godfrey. "All I could say was how proud I was of him."
Proud he chased his dreams.
Mom knows, it hasn't been easy.
Sugar Bowl
No. 6 Utah (12-0) vs. No. 4 Alabama (12-1)
Friday, Jan. 2, 6 p.m.
Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans
TV: Fox Radio: 700 AM