Utah Has Simply Dominated BYU – Or Have They?
By Mitch Harper
By: Jonathon Huckvale, Columnist
It’s rivalry week. Naturally we will begin to see more articles posted than normal regarding the storied rivalry. This article may be biased, but it’s not to make me feel any better (in fact this article does the opposite for me). This article is for the players and coaches – you need to understand this. Ready?
Utah is good. They are not THAT good.
No, BYU fans, Utah doesn’t suck, they are good, but we give them way too much credit. WAY too much. Hear me out: In 2008, Utah was 27-24 good, not 48-24 good. In 2011, Utah was 14-10 good, not 54-10 good. I’m not going to attempt to take away the wins from the Utes, but let’s get real – BYU beat themselves in these games.
Don’t agree? Okay, did you know that since 2008, Utah has scored 76 points in the 4th Quarter? BYU has scored 3. Leading up to the 4th quarter? BYU sits at 67 points, Utah sits at 63. Take away the 3rd quarter melt-down in the 2011 debacle and the numbers drop significantly.
They have benefited from either a new offensive coordinator or a soon-to-be fired offensive coordinator and have used lucky bounces, and blown officiating calls to get what they want out of BYU in the 4th – coupled with better 4th quarter coaching between Whit and Bronco. Utah has had its fair share of struggles at the offensive coordinator position, but they still seem to play it safe enough for BYU to eventually kill themselves without much offense even being necessary.
Let’s look at a game by game analysis starting in 2008 – the year the perceived “domination” began. Before then, BYU was looking at a three-peat.
In 2008 the final score read blow out: 48-27. What the final score doesn’t tell you is that at the end of the 3rd quarter the score was Utah 27 BYU 24. This is all while BYU was driving on a scared Utah defense that was unable to stop the BYU ground attack. BYU stopped running, Utah started intercepting. Coaching and play calling disaster turned into paradise for the Utes. 21 unanswered points off of BYU turnovers for Utah.
2009 was even more interesting. BYU went into the 4th quarter up 20-6 – silencing Utah’s passing and ground attack through 3 quarters and keeping the Utes out of the end zone with their only scores coming off of some early field goals (again, mostly attributed to questionable play calling from Anae). Just when Utah seemed destined for a pathetic loss, a miracle happened. Dr. Anae decided to go into offensive retreat mode. BYU fielded the ball on 4 drives in the 4th quarter and amassed a whopping yardage total of 22. That’s 5.5 yards per drive. Total. This was accomplished by sending Harvey Unga up the middle while Utah stacked the box with 8 men. 22 total yards – and 7 of those yards came when BYU decided to run Unga up the middle with 22 seconds left in the game and Utah was in the prevent defense. So really, 15 yards. Utah went from being down 20 to 6 to eventually take the lead in OT. BYU ended up winning a game they should have ran away with, 26-23 OT.
2010 was one of the saddest days of my life as a BYU fan. BYU had absolutely dominated the Utes leading up to the 4th quarter – with BYU up 13-0. More questionable play calling from Dr. Anae took at least 3 points off of the board earlier on in the game for BYU. Utah benched Wynn, brought out Terrence Cain (who later threw an interception), and then re-benched Cain. BYU forced sacks and interceptions on this sad pathetic Utah offense. By mid-third quarter, BYU’s dominance had caused Utah fans to turn on their own team – loud Boo’s rained down on Whittingham, Wynn, and the entire team. Then, it happened. A blown offensive PI call gave Utah a touchdown, fluke fumbles on punts gave Utah more scores, and a blown fumble call by the officials gave Utah the final go ahead score. As had been the case for BYU during the majority of the game, BYU was still making noise on offense. BYU drove the length of the field in the final minute of the game, landing 1st and 10 inside the Utah 25 yard line with just under 1 minute to go. Instead of going for the throat, Anae stays true to form and decides to run up the middle (as had been the case for most of the 4th quarter) into the teeth of an 8-man stacked box. We all know how this one ends – Utah laughs away with this one victorious. Final score: 17 to 16 after being down 13 to 0. It took 3 fumbles and several blown calls, but they did it. Not much to their credit, this day, Utah’s best player was Robert Anae and the officials.
2011 – I’ll keep this one short. BYU was down 14-10 at halftime, but actually was ahead 10-7 in the 1st half, even after the insane turnovers. Utah slipped one into the end zone on an awkward broken play to an unknown TE as BYU tried to go for the interception and missed terribly. From there BYU just simply gave up. Even after a 3rd quarter riddled by unusual turnovers, BYU was still only down 30-10. BYU could score twice and this things a ball game. Heck, Utah had done it the last two years, why not give it a shot? No. Utah scores an early field goal, and then “runs” up the score with John white collecting TD runs of 62 and 35 yards. Former BYU recruit, VJ Fehoko then returned a BYU fumble 57 yards for a score. 24 unanswered 4th quarter points.
I’m not making excuses for BYU – in fact, I think it shows one thing that Utah has that BYU doesn’t. Coaching strategy and ability – they know how to rally the troops in the 4th quarter. In 2009 and 2010, BYU held a combined lead of 33 to 6. We lost one of those games and the other went to OT. If the roles are reversed, BYU lays down and surrenders. Utah fights, hard, until the end.
Cougars and Coaches listen up: if you are going to beat these Utes, you must understand how competitive (even sometimes dominant) you have been against these guys the first 3 quarters of the game and do whatever it takes to keep the momentum rolling in the 4th quarter. Utah is not the undisputed dominant team in town, you’ve let them off the hook too easily. A combined total of 76 points allowed in the 4th quarter to BYU’s 3 tells the story just fine. History repeats itself, I would not be surprised to see BYU, again, right there with the Utes up until some turning point – where Utah starts to get a little momentum. Instead of moping around lifeless on the sidelines pondering how you can make the loss a good learning experience, how about trying to man up and take a page from the Utes? Fight until the final whistle – especially if you are getting beat. No, this is not a call for your to be cocky and underprepared. It’s a call for you to quit playing scared – play like you can play, and when they start to get lucky? Punch them back in the mouth that much harder – and enjoy it.
Just some interesting Stats to look at how BYU has played with Utah going into the 4th quarter since Utah’s perceived “domination” began over BYU post 2008 BCS season. The first score column represents the score through quarters 1-3, the second represents the 4th quarter score. Brace yourself.
2008: Utah 27 BYU 24 – 4th Quarter Utah 21 BYU 0 (L 48-24)
2009: Utah 6 BYU 20 – 4th Quarter Utah 14 BYU 0 (W 26-23 OT)
2010: Utah 0 BYU 13 – 4th Quarter Utah 17 BYU 3 (L 17-16)
2011: Utah 30 BYU 10 – 4th Quarter Utah 24 BYU 0 (L 54-10)
Going into 4th Quarter Average Score: Utah 15.75 BYU 16.75
4th Quarter: Utah 19 BYU 0.75
Cumulative Score Qtr 1-3: Utah 63 BYU 67
Cumulative Score 4th Quarter: Utah 76 BYU 3
Go Cougs – 4 quarters.
Jonathon Huckvale is a columnist at CougarCenter.net. You can reach him on Twitter @JTrainBYU.