On Saturday, BYU will play in its third conference championship game in program history.
Of course, the Cougars already have 23 conference crowns in their trophy case, but the opportunity for a one-game playoff to earn such glory hasn’t come very often in Provo.
During the Cougars’ days in the WAC, the league only began holding title games in 1996.
The Mountain West didn’t have championship games until after BYU left, and the Cougars were independent for over a decade afterward.
Saturday’s championship matchup with Texas Tech is essentially the most important outing for the Cougars since 1984, where a win would put them in the College Football Playoff field to compete for a national championship. It’s some of the highest stakes ever seen at BYU.
The 1998 WAC championship game
BYU participated in the first-ever WAC championship game in 1996 — a 28-25 overtime victory over rival Wyoming.
Two years later, the Cougars would return to the event to face No. 17 Air Force, but a win would elude them the program’s most recent conference championship game appearance before Saturday.
Kevin Feterik-led BYU held a 13-7 lead in the fourth quarter, only for Air Force to end the contest with consecutive touchdowns to claim the WAC title.
Feterik threw for 258 yards with a touchdown and interception, Ronney Jenkins ran for 100 yards, and the Cougar defense racked up seven sacks, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the favored Falcons.
That 1998 game was attended by 32,745 fans — a far cry from the 85,000-plus that will be at AT&T Stadium in Arlington this Saturday to see the Cougars take on the Red Raiders.
The world on Dec. 5, 1998
- The President of the United States was Bill Clinton, who had recently been impeached. Clinton’s eventual successor, George W. Bush, was the governor of Texas.
- The top-rated television shows were “ER,” “Friends” and “Frasier.”
- The two most dominant forces of the 1990s — Michael Jordan and “Seinfeld” — had ended their respective runs over the summer.
- “The Simpsons” was on its 210th episode; it’s aired 585 more since. Of course, BYU’s WAC exit almost perfectly lines up with the overall decline of the show.
- “Spongebob Squarepants” was still seven months away from premiering.
- The most recent Apple products were the first-edition iMac and Power Mac G4, each of which had been released just a few weeks earlier. Microsoft, on the other hand, had recently rolled out the Windows 98.
- The hottest holiday toy was the Furby doll. Remember those things? Nightmare fuel.
- Google had just been founded a few months earlier, and its offices were still in a Menlo Park, California garage.
- Netflix was in its second year of operation as a DVD rental by mail service, and Blockbuster had thousands of locations across the country.
- Business at Enron was up 36% compared to the previous year. Before long, Business at Enron would sit at 0%.
- The top movies at the box office were “A Bug’s Life,” “You’ve Got Mail” and “The Prince of Egypt.” Pixar, Tom Hanks AND Val Kilmer as Moses? That’s an all-time weekend right there.
- Overshadowing every current movie, however, was the recently-released teaser trailer for “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace," which I will go to my grave defending as a good movie.
- The top song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart was “I’m Your Angel” by Celine Dion and R. Kelly. Other hot tracks that week included offerings from 98 Degrees, Shania Twain and the Goo Goo Dolls.
- NSYNC’s most recent release was the “Home For Christmas” album, while the Backstreet Boys had recorded “I Want It That Way” a month earlier.
- Andy Reid was a month away from being hired as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, while fellow BYU alum and eventual Texas Tech coach Mike Leach was about to become Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator.
- Texas Tech’s most famous alumnus, Patrick Mahomes, was three years old.
- The President of BYU was Merrill J. Bateman, and the most recently constructed building on campus was the Ezra Taft Benson building.
- BYU’s football team was about to ditch its classic royal blue color scheme (and best jerseys ever, in my humble opinion) in favor of navy blue, tan and the infamous ‘bibs’ uniforms. Thank goodness BYU eventually came to its senses and went back to the royal.
- Kalani Sitake was a fullback at BYU, Aaron Roderick was a Cougars wide receiver and return specialist, and Jay Hill was a defensive back at Utah.
- Except for punter Sam Vander Haar, not a single current BYU player had been born yet — and the same goes for this writer.
