BYU Football Countdown: No. 69 – Forgotten champion
By Adam Gibby
Lakei Heimuli – Running back – 1983-1986
During the 1980’s BYU was the Texas Tech of college football. They threw the ball and scored a lot of touchdowns. In 1984 the Cougars scored 34 or more points eight times. All of the attention and media was going to two players though, Robbie Bosco and Glen Kozlowski. Just in Zion Williamson’s case, those two players deserved the press and attention. They were the big play makers afterall.
But then there was Lakei Heimuli, the starting running back that who only ran the ball 158 times. There was nothing special about him. Sure he was good, but everyone in the league was running the ball so Heimuli didn’t stick out or have the flashy plays.
And yet, without him BYU probably doesn’t win a national championship.
Rankings
Impact: B+
Heimuli averaged 5.0 yards per run during the 1984 season and 4.6 over his career. But his real impact out of the backfield came with his catching. In 1984, the HB screen was underutilized and hard to scout out so the Cougars took advantage of that. That season Heimuli had 31 catches for 242 yards and a touchdown. Sure the 7.0 yards per catch doesn’t seem like a huge impact stat, but what it did was keep defenses looking in the backfield. It opened up the rest of the field for the quarterback. Over his career, Heimuli had 139 catches, mostly out of the backfield for 1,123 yards which is a huge impact maker when added to his rushing yards.
Statistics B
Given the time period of BYU Football, 796 rushing yards in 1984 was pretty good. He led the team by a mile in that category. He also added the 242 receiving yards, essentially making him a 1,000 yard back that season. Over his career, Heimuli racked up 2,710 rushing yards, 32 touchdowns and as mentioned before 1,123 receiving yards. That is a total of 3,833 yards. In 2017, BYU’s entire offense only gained 4,228 yards all season. He did have 15 fumbles, losing 12 of them hurts the ranking, but overall, he was a really solid player that deserves more credit.
Memorable Moments C
In 1985, Heimuli went off on Utah scoring three rushing touchdowns including an 83 yard run. In total he ran 163 yards and added another 39 in receiving yards. That season he also had a game with 13 catches against Colorado State. In 1984 however, he wasn’t all too memorable. His biggest games came in blow outs and he didn’t score in the bowl game. But that shouldn’t take away from the fact that he kept defenses running and catching out of the backfield, and that probably helped BYU win a game or two that they would have otherwise lost.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – — – – –
Be sure to come back tomorrow as reveal player No. 68 on the list. If you missed yesterday’s player click on the link below!