BYU Football Countdown: No. 73 – 1984’s anchor
By Adam Gibby
BYU Football beings its season against Utah in only 73 more days!
73 days ago it was April 5th. Most kids were coming off of Spring Break and General Conference was about to begin for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. BYU was only one week away from starting their finals week and the Final Four was about to tip off. I like to do this every once in awhile to keep my sanity and to help realize that football isn’t as far away as it seems.
Today’s player, like a few of the other players on this list does not actually receive ranking grades. Offensive and defensive lineman are the anchor to any football team. Watch 100 games and 95% of the time, if a team is able to dominate both sides of the line of scrimmage, they are going to win.
Take Wisconsin for example; in 2017 they dominated the offensive and defensive line of scrimmage and blew past BYU. In 2018, even though they had the more talented running back and receivers, because BYU won at the line of scrimmage, the Cougars were able to pull off the upset.
Ranking linemen is really tough because they can be overlooked, and quite honestly we don’t talk about them unless they making a mistake, but today’s featured player deserves to be at the No. 73 spot on our countdown.
No. 73 Trevor Matich – Center – 1979-80, 83-84
Trevor Matich, a current College Football Analyst for ESPN and former 12 year NFL veteran got his career started at BYU by helping them win a National Championship in 1984. In the 1984 season, the Cougars offense scored 392 points (30.1 offensive points per game) and gained 5,828 yards (448.3 yards per game). In 2018, the team averaged 371 yards per game.
Although no credit should be taken away from Robbie Bosco, David Mills or Lakei Heimuli, if Trevor Matich wasn’t holding the pocket or making a hole those three players would probably be forgotten as BYU would have likely finished 10-3 or perhaps 11-2, a great season but definitely not a National Championship team.
Watching highlights of the 1984 season, it is very obvious that the line was run by Matich. Whenever the line bends after the snap that shows where the strength of the line is. Sometimes that will be around an offensive guard or tackle, but time and time again in 1984 it was around the center, sometimes the toughest and most rare consistent anchor on the team because of having to snap the ball.
Even though we don’t have the stats for Matich, it is safe to say he was a top five player on the 1984 team, and that alone earns him the 73 ranking.