The students in his classes wouldn’t know it, but back when BYU English professor Frank Christianson was finding his own way, as a wide-eyed, college kid in Provo, he ran right into history, or at least a football player destined to make some — and paid a painful price.
“Him coming through the line, and the line parting like the Red Sea with me sitting there eight yards deep,” is what Christianson told the “Y’s Guys” podcast about his encounter with San Diego State running back Marshall Faulk. “Given how quick he was, the thing you would expect was that he would have tried to side-step me, but I hit him head on.”
Faulk was just 5-foot-10 and 211 pounds and he ran with the electric charge of a lightning bolt and for a moment, Christianson, a 6-2, 205-pound weakside safety at BYU, wasn’t quite sure what hit him.
“It was the first and only stinger I ever had — just fire down my whole left side and it kind of stunned me,” he said. “I never saw anybody with that kind of speed, in-pads speed.
“All they needed to do was give him a little bit of momentum. If they could give him four yards, he was already at full speed. Once he had any kind of open field, it was incredibly difficult to track him down.”
The future NFL Hall of Famer blistered BYU’s defense on that night in 1992 for a LaVell Edwards Stadium record 299 yards rushing on 35 carries. Faulk also scored three touchdowns in the Aztecs’ 45-38 victory. The following year in San Diego, he picked up where he left off and ran for 252 yards and two touchdowns against Christianson and the Cougars, but in a 45-44 defeat.
“For what a running back can do, like as a lethal weapon, he’s the one who had the best tools,” Christianson said. “He was amazing.”
Faulk finished his college career with 4,589 rushing yards and 57 touchdowns. As a pro with the Colts and Rams, he ran for 12,279 yards and 100 touchdowns. But, as fate would have it, Faulk wasn’t the only future Hall of Famer to collide with Christianson.
When the Cougars rolled into South Bend in 1992, Notre Dame’s star runner Jerome Bettis, ran at the BYU defense like a human battering ram.
“I almost made a singular contribution to the outcome of that game,” Christianson said. “He tried to run through the line, and I hit him as he was being slowed up and kind of kinked his neck. He had to come out of the game, and I thought, ‘I had put Jerome Bettis out!’
The bad news for BYU was that Bettis returned.
“He came back with a vengeance,” Christianson said. “He was making up for lost time (in the second half).”
Bettis finished the game with 113 yards rushing and scored a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to turn a tight 21-16 Notre Dame lead into a 42-16 victory.
Christianson grew up watching his father, James, teach at BYU and after earning his under-graduate and master’s degrees in Provo and a doctorate at Brown, he decided to do the same. Christianson has been teaching American Literature since 2002 and from his seat in the English Department, has watched the football program transition to the Big 12.
“It’s hard to imagine,” he said. “We are talking the WAC (when) I was playing. It was a far cry (from today). This is top tier. It’s inspiring to see how the program has evolved.”
Last season’s 11-2 record impressed Christianson and has made him cautiously optimistic for more success this fall.
“There is reason to (believe) they can repeat and do well. So many of those games could have gone the other way last year. It’s hard to know,” he said, before returning to his roots. “I’m excited for the defense.”
For a kid who was schooled by a pair of legends, Faulk and Bettis, Christianson is proof you can take a player out of the defense and turn him into a professor, but you can’t take the defensive mindset out of either of them.
“Every defensive back will tell you, if you have a defensive line that can penetrate and contain it makes all the difference in the world,” he said. “It’s everything.”
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com