Player 77 Kurt Gouveia – Linebacker – 1982-1985
1984 was the moment in the spotlight for BYU Football. A spotlight that teams like Utah, Boise State, Oregon and Oklahoma State have never won in. Sure in its 125 year history many teams have won championships, but quite a few really good teams have never quite made it as far as winning the championship game.
While the 1984 season will be remembered for its offense, scoring 35 points or more in more games than not, the defense actually was responsible for winning four games that the offense struggled to score in.
One of the best players on the defense for this team was Kurt Gouveia. Gouveia was quick to the ball and was able to get on the ground quick when there was a fumble. Without Gouveia’s play perhaps BYU wouldn’t be a national champion.
Rankings
Impact: B+
Any player that is on the 1984 team and records decent stats is going to get a pretty good grade for impact. Gouveia had 10 tackles against Pitt, 10 against Wyoming and four tackles, two pass breakups and a sack in the bowl game against Michigan. Those three games were the closest games BYU played all season and Gouveia definitely made an impact for the team in the biggest games.
Statistics C-
Gouveia has really good stats for a normal player, but at 77 on this list, he still compares below average of the other players that will be featured later on. During his career, Gouveia totaled 224 tackles, 13 tackles for loss, 10 sacks, five fumble recoveries and two blocked kicks. The key was when those happened, but in the statistics category, the ranking doesn’t care when it happened, it just looks at numbers which again are really good, but compared to the best of the best are above par.
Memorable Moments C+
Watch this video. Turns out that Gouveia wanted to play for Hawaii but was not recruited by them, so he let them know and went out and won a national championship. Take that Rainbow Warriors! Gouveia from the games that I saw normally was a quiet stat collector picking up his 6-10 tackles per game without really being noticed. The fumble recoveries and huge games at the big moments help his case quite a bit, but again compared to players ahead of him, they aren’t A+ memorable moments.
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Come back tomorrow as we begin week ten countdown to the Utes and bring player 76 to you. Also if you’ve missed any of the first 22 players click on the recap links below.