The scoreboard read 17-14 in favor of the home BYU Cougars as 19-year-old Bear Bachmeier caught his breath in the backfield. As the game clock whittled below the five-minute mark, BYU's freshman quarterback panned his eyes across the nameplates of his offensive linemen, while the Utes' D-line dipped their crimson crowns toward the football.
Gripped in center Bruce Mitchell's right hand, the football's pointed end dug itself into the grass, crouched and prepared to spring into the backfield at the quarterback's signal.
Third down and ten yards to go, Bachmeier analyzed the defense's formation. Learned their intentions. Predicted their approach. Analytics and common sense would demand that Bachmeier should look to throw the ball on this play. Kyle Whittingham's teams are known for their dominance on the front lines -- on both sides of possession -- and breaking free from their opposition was an unlikely proposition for an offense that had only managed to score twice through 55 minutes of play.
But a field goal flips the scoreboard to 17-10; that's a one-possession game. In a rivalry as storied and dramatic as the Holy War, it's rarely a good idea to give your opponent the last possession and a chance to steal the win as time expires. The Utes learned that the hard way last year in Salt Lake City, when Will Ferrin's last-second field goal lifted the undefeated Cougars to a 22-21 victory in a Rice-Eccles' sea of red.
But Bachmeier didn't attend BYU's climactic Holy War win last season -- he was still in high school.
In fact, he didn't have a stake in the Beehive State's most heated rivalry at all until a few months ago, joining the Cougars after spring practice as a true freshman following Stanford's coaching change.
He won the starting job in no time, and had led BYU football to its second consecutive 6-0 start. Now, standing with his shoulders squared to the north endzone, Bachmeier had an opportunity to become a legendary figure in this storied duel.
A touchdown on this possession could essentially confirm the Cougars' victory -- their third consecutive win in a series that had been incredibly one-sided in the Utes' favor since the turn of the century, including a nine-game winning streak that nearly sank BYU into a belief that they'd never catch the Utes on the football field again.
Winning this game tips the scales in the favor of Kalani Sitake's program -- a clear and unmistakable power shift in BYU's favor since joining a Power Four conference and evening their footing with that of the Utes, who split paths with their neighbors when the Pac-12 Conference came calling over a decade and a half ago.
Carrying the weight from decades of tension between these rivals, Bachmeier clapped his hands and caught the snap.
A one-step dropback lulled the Ute defense into a pass coverage mindset, if only for a moment, as Bachmeier dug his cleat into the earth and tucked the ball against the bold, blocky 47 stitched across his chest.
QB sneak with 10 yards to go. And the Utah defense reacted accordingly by converging on the scrambling quarterback.
He slipped through the fingers of a red-clad defender and ran up ahead to the line of scrimmage, planting his right foot in the dirt as three Utes approached the runner from all sides. A cut to the left, and a diving foe's hands bounced off their target. Bachmeier's legs kept turning as another defender's outstretched arms failed to knock the ball carrier off-balance.
Another defender slid off his back as he vaulted, leaped, and bounced off of the opposition. The Utes, in complete panic, began stumbling over themselves in a desperate attempt to slow the bleeding. But when Bachmeier reaches the second level of the defense with a full head of steam, it takes much more than spindly arm tackles from the secondary to bring him to his knees.
Bachmeier dipped his shoulder into a Ute safety, Jackson Benee, who finally slowed Bear's momentum just enough to allow another tackler to catch up to the runaway quarterback.
Unfortunately for Utah, Bachmeier got some help from his friends, too. Pushing the pile in a climactic cloud of red and blue, BYU's freshman quarterback dragged Utah defenders all the way across the plain of the goal line, and virtually sealing the Cougars' victory over a Ute team that had been favored to win this game at kickoff.
Neither the oddsmakers nor the Utes could have known that Kalani Sitake and the BYU Cougars would be setting a Bear loose on the field of LaVell Edwards Stadium -- now they won't be quick to forget.
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