One of the biggest upsets in the Utah-BYU football rivalry came in 1988 when quarterback Scott Mitchell led the Utes to an improbable 57-28 victory. Ute Insider Mike Sorensen talks with Mitchell about his big day in ’88 and Mitchell reveals how the Utes were dialed in on the Cougars’ predictable defense. Mitchell also talks about growing up as a BYU fan in Utah County and how the rivalry has changed over the years.
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Editor’s note: The following is a transcript of the episode. It's been edited for clarity.
Mike Sorensen: Hey, thanks for listening to another Ute Insiders podcast. This is Mike Sorensen with the Deseret News and we hope you've enjoyed the rivalry podcasts we've done earlier this week. Coming up in this episode, we're talking to Scott Mitchell, the former Utah quarterback, about the iconic 1988 game when the underdog Utes upset BYU 57-28. Scott will talk about his role in that game and all about the rivalry. That and more on the Ute Insiders podcast.
OK. We're happy today to have Scott Mitchell with us. He was the quarterback for that iconic 1988 Utah win over BYU, when an underdog Utah team beat the Cougars, 57-28. Scott was quarterback of that team and he, as many of you know, holds practically every Utah passing and total offense record, even to this day, 30 years later. That was a huge win for Utah.
Scott, welcome. Just talk about you know, you played for Utah for three years. You also played in the NFL for several years. Now, this has got to be one of the biggest highlights in your memory of your football playing days, isn't it?
Scott Mitchell: Yeah, I played a lot of football in my life, in college, in high school, and the pros. And of course, that game certainly was a big game for us at Utah, simply because we weren't really that good. We, you know, when you talk about all those records, a lot of that was because we had to score a lot of points if we were going to have any chance. So we threw the heck out of the football and we had a great offense. It was really a lot of fun, a lot of good memories. But Utah was kind of the younger brother in those days. And BYU was the big kid on the block. And they'd had so much success recently in the Western Athletic Conference at the time and they'd recently won the national championship, so BYU was in its heyday, in its prime of the LaVell Edwards era. And the last 10 years before that BYU had won. So we kind of just were sick and tired of being the underdog and you love that about sports, when the team just has no business winning and we really — they were a better football team than we were, their program was better, at the time we had no business winning the game. So whenever you do that, whenever you beat the team that's supposed to win it means that much more to you. I've been on both sides of this and I can tell you it's so much sweeter to just beat big brother and beat the team that you're not supposed to win.
MS: Like you said, Utah had lost nine in a row, they'd lost 15 out of 16. You came into that game 5-5 and they were 8-2. They didn't win the league that year but they had won like nine straight championships, so they were definitely the big brother, as you said. But you told me the other day, you know, we had a story in the paper this week about this game, that you kind of decided the gameplan was you're just going to be aggressive and throw everything you could at them. Can just talk about that, what your mindset was going into that game?
SM: Well when you're really good a lot of times, you become really predictable, and BYU was very predictable on defense. I mean I can remember this still to this day. And we actually started talking about how predictable they were back in spring football. We were already devising the gameplan that early. So this was on our mind for a long time. On first down they were in a cover-three, on second down it was cover-two, and on third down it was a quarters coverage. So what that means is there's three deep safeties on cover-three, there's two on cover-two, and there's like kind of four deep half defenders or deep defenders on a defense. And as a quarterback, if you know this before the snap of the ball, like if you know what the defense is going to be doing, it makes it so much easier for you to have success. So we picked what is our very best play against cover-three? And it wasn't the best play, it was like the play that had the highest probability of scoring a touchdown. What's our best play against cover-two, what's our best play against quarters coverage? And so we went into the game just knowing this. It's highly unusual when you get that luxury. You know that they might play one of two or three coverages on a down, you just never know. But BYU was just very, very predictable, but they were just normally better than everyone else. So they just beat you with better athletes, beat you with better execution. And so we went into this game extremely confident of what we were actually going to do.
MS: And that's good to be able to know what the other team's doing a little bit. Did you ever talk to anybody afterwards and say, hey, we could figure out what you guys are doing?
SM: No, we don't want to tell them that because we're going to play him the next year. And the next year a lot of the plays worked as well, the problem was Ty Detmer was playing extremely well at the time, and LaVell was not happy about losing that game. I didn't play in the game. I was actually injured. And I think we scored 35 points. But we lost 70-35 or something like that. But a lot of the same plays worked the next year as well.
MS: Just happened too late in that game. I just meant 30 years later. Do you ever talk to BYU guys and say, Hey
SM: Actually, yeah, so I do a podcast with Jason Buck called "Rivals." And we've actually talked about it before. And he said that he says, he says, Yeah, Dick Felt was very predictable in what he did it, they didn't change it a lot. And in a lot of ways you liked it as a player, because you could just go and just play and just be free and you weren't always confused or second-guessing yourself, Am I in the right spot? And am I doing the right thing?
MS: Yeah. So anyway, looking back at that game. I went through the play-by-play recently, they keep these records and like you said, you kind of decided to be aggressive at them. And the third play of the game, I don't know if you remember this. According to the play-by-play, it was a flea-flicker with Eddie Johnson throwing it back to you and then you threw a long pass that got intercepted. Do you have any memory of that?
SM: I actually do, and I don't have a good explanation for what actually happened. It was, well, I do. The receiver was supposed to go left and he went right, and and I threw left and he went right and that's all I'm gonna remember about that. I'm not sure if that's actually what happened. What I do remember about it, though, it was really probably the only moment in that game that just didn't go right. Or just didn't go our way. It was just our day. I mean, we had a defensive end, Sammy Tausinga, actually recovered, I think it was a pass and ran it for a touchdown. And everything was magical. Even if we threw that interception, that day was just the day that Utah was going to beat BYU.
MS: Oh, yeah. You guys came back, you recovered quickly because you scored three straight touchdowns. You had two long passes that set up short runs by Eddie Johnson from 2 and 3 yards. Eddie Johnson had a great day with four touchdowns. Most of those were set up by your long passes to Dennis Smith and Carl Harry and people like that.
SM: Yeah, we had one where Carl actually, I think it was right before or right after that interception, where Carl was wide open and would have scored a touchdown and dropped a pass. And it was a play that we'd worked on a lot. And it was wide open. And he just dropped it, which Carl hardly ever did. I mean, he's a great receiver. So it could have been even worse than it actually was.
MS: Yeah, in fact, I think Utah, they got ahead 27-7 at halftime. It's 43-14 after three quarters. And then it was 10 minutes to go in the game you guys were already 57. I don't know if you remember this. You got within the 10-yard line twice more after that. You could have scored maybe 70 points.
SM: Yeah, I actually, you know, it's funny. I don't remember that last part of the game. I'm trying. Was that our last game of the season?
MS: Yeah, it was your last game.
SM: I actually broke my wrist in that game. And I didn't realize it till after the game. Because I got married the first part of December and actually had a cast on when I got married. But I broke it in that game.
MS: Really? Didn't know 'till afterwards?
SM: I had no idea. We were pretty excited. This was a big deal.
MS: Can you just talk maybe a little bit about — I talked to a couple BYU players about this also, that they weren't like overconfident. But they were just more or less shocked. You know, they couldn't believe what was happening. And they walked off the field saying, what just happened, we got hammered. But what was your feeling when you saw BYU? Did you have a similar feeling what they were thinking during that game?
SM: You could definitely tell. I mean, you could see it. I can speak for a lot of the defensive guys, because of course, that's who I was facing in the game. And they were — you could just see the frustration. Troy Long was a really good safety back then, I knew some of the other players on the team. And they were just, they just kind of — how do we deal with this? And it was almost like no matter what we do, no matter what we try, we're not going to win this game today. And sometimes it's hard. You know, as I look back now, having all this experience, sometimes when you get so shell-shocked by a team, a lot of times you don't know how to deal with it, you don't know how to handle it. And you just kind of have to write it off as, look, it's just one of those days, it's just not our day today. And just give the other team their due. And that's really kind of what that game was. I mean, fortunately for us, it was a huge day and a huge game. And it just, you know, like I said in the beginning, I can't tell you how great winning when no one expects you to win it. Winning is great. But it's just really nice when you have those times when you win when you're just not supposed to.
MS: Also maybe talk a little bit about the fact that you grew up in Springville, just down the road from Provo. And your whole life you were a BYU fan. And people expected you to go there. I know it's a long story, but maybe just how the feeling was that you went to Utah. And then maybe what did the BYU fans think about you coming down and beating them so badly, and then living with it for the past 30 years since then.
SM: I know a lot of people don't care for me in Utah County and they're BYU fans, and I get it. I understand that. But I don't have any animosity towards other teams or schools, or BYU or anything like that. I just don't think it's a healthy attitude to have. But I can tell you that I was really searching to go to school and go to the place that I felt was best for me. And in doing so, I felt that going to Utah was what I should do and that's from someone who grew up in the shadow of BYU and my parents went there, and I'm related to LaVell Edwards and I have really, really deep ties to BYU. And so for me to feel that way, it had to have been a pretty powerful experience to know that I need to go to the University of Utah. And it was hard when I was at Utah, because we weren't very good. We never were any good. We never went to a bowl game. We never won a conference championship. So that was hard for me. That was hard for me when I was at Utah. But as I look back on my life, and what I gained from my experience, I found who I was, I found out what was important to me in my life by going to the University of Utah. And that was invaluable, it still is invaluable to me today, but had nothing to do with football. It really didn't. It was just a personal experience that I had. And it was great. And I know that probably being at the University of Utah was the best place for me to have that experience.
MS: Right. So that 1988 game was the first of, like you say, in 16 years Utah had only won once. Since that time Utah has won 17 out of 28 games, they've more or less dominated it. Just what do you think about the rivalry today, it's kind of flipped in a way. Now Utah's won seven straight and BYU is trying to break that string this week.
SM: I think it's hard for people that see it in the present form. And they go well, it's not really a rivalry anymore. And I can tell you back when I was at Utah, BYU was saying that this isn't a rivalry. Our rival's Air Force or our rival's Wyoming or San Diego State, it's not Utah. And so when you see it from like a small part of the whole rivalry, you could get caught up in that. But if you look at this, I mean, Utah and BYU have played football for over 100 years. And it's been this thing with us in our culture and in our state. And so you have to really look at this from its whole history and its whole perspective. And if you really value and you really appreciate traditional college football and you appreciate rivalries, and what they really mean over time. This is, no matter who has the upper hand today, it's always a great rivalry. If you're a Utah fan today you're like yeah, we're on top. if you're a BYU fan back in the day it's like, yeah we're on top. And that's what's great about a rivalry. Where it is today, it's not going to be that way forever. It will change again. And this thing ebbs and flows throughout time and so to really appreciate it you have to look at the whole history of it and not just maybe the present context of Utah is the better team, Utah should win this game, that's just the facts of things. But I can tell you in 1988, BYU should have won that game. They were the better team, there was no questioning who was. And so you just never know, you never know. And that's from a Utah guy. I hope Utah wins. But rivalry — funny things happen.
MS: So that brings us back to the present. So you're now one of the Utah color guys and so Utah's obviously the big favorite, 13-point favorite this week. It's kind of a similar situation to 30 years ago. You know, BYU had a big game against No. 2 Miami the week after. Utah's got their big championship game for the Pac-12 title the week after. So I'm just wondering if you think there might be some ways where Utah might be kind of looking past BYU or what's your guess for this week?
SM: What's great about sports is that you have humans involved. And humans, just by nature, you can't help if you're Utah and think, you know, I want to get this game over because I want to go to the Pac-12 championship. It's never happened for Utah in its history to win the Pac-12 South. It's never in the history of Utah football been where they're playing to go to the Rose Bowl. That's such an incredible statement. And so human nature, you gotta say, yeah, you're going to be thinking about that. And I guarantee you, they probably really don't want to play BYU. I mean, really. And BYU is going, we are fighting for our lives. We're fighting for respect, we're fighting just to be relevant still. And there's no better way for us to do that than to beat the team that won the Pac-12 South. That gives you tremendous credibility, if you're BYU at this time. So you know that they're going to come out and they're going to go, we're leaving nothing in the tank. We are going to throw everything we possibly have. And when you get that combination where one team is really trying and maybe another team really isn't. Anything's possible, especially with young men from the ages of 18 up to maybe 25 years. Anything's possible. Anything is possible. And you see that all the time. And that's really what's great about sports. And that's what's great about rivalries, is although it looks on the surface like a foregone conclusion, who's going to win, the reality is, a lot of times, it never plays out that way.
MS: Well, it certainly didn't in 1988, and we'll see what happens this week. So, Scott, we certainly appreciate you being here with us on the Ute Insiders podcast and we'll see what happens this week. And it'll be another great rivalry game.
SM: Yeah, I look forward to it. Thank you. I really enjoyed this. And that was a great moment in my life. And, you know, it's fun that they keep doing this rivalry and I hope it never ends. Thanks.