1984 revisited: Trevor Matich’s championship moment was tempered by family crisis

Editor’s note: Tenth in a series exploring BYU’s 1984 national football championship.

As the final seconds ticked away at San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium, Trevor Matich, BYU’s senior center, made his way over to the scout team. The 24-17 Holiday Bowl victory over Michigan sealed the Cougars’ undefeated season and eventual national championship, but celebrating on the field could wait. Matich was on a mission.

“They were standing on the sideline in their game uniforms,” he said. “I thanked them for making life so hard for us at practice because they did. We all did it together. Without contributions from everybody, none of us would have the recognition that we have enjoyed our entire lives.”

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The moment, while magnificent for the Cougars and for a football program that longed for such a night, was different for Matich. With the game over, his focus turned to Sacramento, and he couldn’t get there fast enough.

‘You better call your mother’

Two weeks earlier, just before BYU started its bowl prep, Matich was on the phone with a reporter from Sports Illustrated. The writer was confirming a few details before the magazine sent its featured piece on the offensive line to the printer.

“At the end of the call, the reporter asked me, ‘How is your brother doing?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’” Matich reflected. “He said, ‘You better call your mother.’”

A quick call home followed, and Matich learned that his younger brother, Dever, had been poked in the eyes earlier that night during a high school basketball game. Both retinas were torn, and the prognosis was bleak. Doctors feared Dever would spend the rest of his life legally blind.

“I jumped in the car and drove home. I didn’t tell LaVell (Edwards) or anybody. I just left,” Matich said. “Football went from being the most important thing in the whole world to not mattering at all. It was midnight. It was snowing. I just left.”

Surgery on both eyes following a priesthood blessing calmed the conditions to the point that Matich felt he could drive back to Provo and begin preparations for Michigan. After the game, as the team returned to campus for a series of celebrations, Matich returned to Sacramento, and stayed all winter to witness Dever’s miraculous recovery.

It was there, on Jan. 2, 1985, when the heart and soul of one of the most productive offensive lines in BYU history, nonchalantly opened a USA Today newspaper and read that his Cougars had been crowned national champions.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh. Hey. Cool.’”

Matich and his M&Ms

The SI reporter became aware of Dever’s condition while speaking with Carol Matich as part of his story. The magazine, along with The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and others, had come to Provo before the bowl season to try and figure out who these No. 1-ranked Cougars really were.

As each outlet searched for a hook they could sell to their respective readership, SI stumbled on Matich and his pregame ritual with chocolate candy.

“The night before each game, I’d take peanut M&Ms and spread them out on the bed,” Matich said. “They were color coded for the defense. The linebackers were orange. The defensive line was brown. The offensive line was green and yellow.”

Using the M&Ms as props, Matich would move the candies in and out of a variety of formations and run through every possible Xs and Os scenario, where the defense could attack his offensive line.

“After I ran through all the what-ifs, I would eat the M&Ms,” Matich said. “That’s what I did each week. That was just me.”

SI ran with it and the story was published on Page 6 of the Dec. 17 edition with the headline, “Beware of the Candy Men.”

The Candy Men

As the man in the middle of the Candy Men, Matich anchored a line sculpted by old-school coaches Roger French and Mel Olsen. They were the ones who, Matich said, “maximized our ability to play our positions.” When maximized, the offensive line became one of the best, if not the best, in program history. To this day, Matich speaks of his supporting cast as if they beat Michigan yesterday.

• On Dave Wright (left tackle): “Dave was one of the better pass-blocking left tackles in the country. He understood there were four seniors over there. He was very respectful of the fact that he was a young pup, even though he was a junior. He didn’t talk a lot. He just blocked and blocked and blocked. He had Robbie (Bosco)’s blind side, and he held up game after game.”
• On Craig Garrick (left guard): “Nobody gave more to that national championship than Craig — his body, his effort, his infectious joyfulness, his contribution on the field and what it cost him later. He never complained. He was limping but he always had a smile because he loved what he was doing. He loved it. His love for the game set the tone for the rest of us. What he gave for that national title was greater than everyone else on that team combined.”
• On Robert Anae (right guard): “He was a master technician, in part because he knew the why in everything we did. He understood why things were happening and what to do to be successful. He didn’t talk a lot, but when he did, he was serious. When he laughed, he was joyful and when it was time to play football there was a vicious cruelty in his eyes. If you looked into his eyes on game day without knowing what he was like away from football, you would be terrified of this guy.”
• On Louis Wong (right tackle): “Louis was so good natured. He always had a smile and always seemed to be enjoying what was going on. I don’t think I heard him complain. He was a joy to have around. He was very afraid of snakes, and he made the mistake of telling us that.”

Friendly fire

With that trusted nugget of inside information, Matich reached out to the zoology department on campus and talked them into lending him a boa constrictor. What happened next can only be attributed to the lingering residue of unbridled adolescence.

Wong was being interviewed by a television reporter in the weight room when Matich walked up from behind with the snake around his neck.

“I put the head of the snake up near the left side of his face and he just ignored it,” Matich said. “I said, ‘Louis!’ He turned and looked and then looked back at the camera. I thought, ‘What? No reaction?”

The interview continued and then Wong stopped talking. It was as if his brain finally calculated the circumstances. He turned around and started running. He ran to the other end of the weight room and right out the door.

“I don’t think he stopped running for miles, and he probably set a new land speed record getting away from that boa,” Matich laughed. “From a prank standpoint, we thought it was hilarious. I’m still not sure what Louis thought about it. He had the right to punch me in the head, but he never did.”

Holding back on Hammerstein

Even 40 years later, when Matich hears the name Mike Hammerstein, the tone of his voice still hardens, and he speaks as if his fists are clinched. The Michigan linebacker hit Bosco on the knees in the first quarter and temporarily knocked him out of the game.

“I’m still mad at him. It infuriated us,” Match said. “That cheap shot, are you kidding me? We went to a level of fury beyond football.”

Later in the game, and still raging, Matich saw Hammerstein in a vulnerable position and began his pursuit of a payback.

“I went to go injure him. I saw his knee and I went flying over there to take him out but at the last second, I pulled back,” Matich said. “I was literally thinking, ‘Oh, we can’t have a flag right now.’ Other than that moment of selfishness that I didn’t act on, we stayed focused on what we had to do.”

The decisive drive

Bosco eventually returned to the game and as he limped into the huddle, Matich made a quick assessment.

“I’m thinking this guy isn’t going to be able to move. We need to be the best protectors in the history of protectors,” he said. “We knew we had to protect him right where he was.”

With the game tied at 17 late in the fourth quarter, BYU began the drive that would make history.

“We didn’t need to do any talking. We were four seniors and a junior. We knew what the stakes were,” Matich said. “We just looked at each other. I looked over at Louis (Wong) and he had purpose in his eyes. So did Robert (Anae). Wow.”

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BYU marched to the Wolverines’ 13-yard line. On third down and with less than 90 seconds remaining, Matich hiked the ball to Bosco.

“I was uncovered as they rushed four. I backed up looking left and right. Robert had his guy to the right, so I went to the left and hit Craig’s (Garrick) guy and he crashed into Dave’s (Wright) guy,” Matich said. “That opened a hole up the middle.”

With pressure mounting from the right side, Bosco had no choice but to turn up field.

“I saw that happen and I thought, ‘Oh, there goes Robbie.’ I turned around and took off,” Matich said. “I was on one side of Robbie and Louis was on the other, kind of like escorts, and then he threw it on the run to Kelly Smith in the end zone.”

The touchdown won the game 24-17, which completed the unbeaten season and earned the national championship.

ESPN, then and now

BYU’s 1984 run began as an unranked team that went to Pittsburgh and upset the No. 3 Panthers 20-14. The game was also ESPN’s first live regular-season college football broadcast. Last August, Matich began his 21st season on ESPN as a college football analyst.

Each time on the air, the former Cougar is proudly introduced as “BYU national champion Trevor Matich.”

“It is incredibly powerful for credibility because there are very few people that can say they are a college football national champion,” he said. “But I always follow that up with, when given the chance, that ‘we’ won the national championship. I never say I am a national champion. I always say I was part of a team that won the national championship. There is even more power in that because we did it together.”

During his four years in a BYU uniform, the Cougars went 47-3. Matich studied centers Scott Nielsen (1979) and Bart Oates (1980) before serving a Latter-day Saint mission to Torreon, Mexico. When he returned, Matich split time at center with Anae in 1983. He started every game in 1984 during the Cougars’ only undefeated season in 99 years of football.

“It was exhilarating. It still is exhilarating,” said the 15-time Emmy Award-winning broadcaster and 1985 first-round draft pick by New England, who resides in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife Dana. “It was an honor. It was also an accomplishment, and it was accomplished on the foundation built by the guys who came before us.”