Highlights from shock & awe
by JazzyUte on Sep 19, 2011 10:18 PM MDT
in Holy War
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PrintAfter Saturday's game, ESPN Pac-12 blogger Ted Miller wrote that Utah opened up some shock and awe on the Cougars.
For a rivalry that loves to name specific games (the Rice Bowl, Burton's Block, Doink Game), shock & awe works perfectly. It pretty much sums up exactly what Utah unleashed on BYU Saturday night. It was the most dominant stretch of football this rivalry has seen since BYU routed Utah 70-31 at LaVell Edwards Stadium in 1989.
In the 80s, Utah fans witnessed a lot of those games and many even happened in their own stadium. During the 1980 rivalry game, the Cougars overtook Rice Stadium and pulverized the Utes 56-6. That was really the beginning of the end for Utah head coach Wayne Howard, as next year, after a successful 8-2-1 season, he abruptly retired and left the state.
Howard had been quoted many times throughout his five years with the Utes on how much he hated the BYU Cougars. In his first season leading the program, LaVell Edwards reinserted starting quarterback Marc Wilson to break the NCAA record for passing yards - even with the Cougars handily ahead. After the game, Howard was famously quoted that beating BYU would now be his crusade.
The next year, the Utes upended BYU 23-22 in Salt Lake City, earning their first victory over an Edwards coached team. They wouldn't win again until 1988.
Wayne Howard was one of the first people I thought of shortly after Utah's 54-10 victory over the Cougars Saturday night. Though his time was well before mine, I've always had a fascination with the coaches who made their short stay in Salt Lake City throughout the 1970s and 80s.
Howard is the most perplexing. Like I said, he left the program at its highest level in 20 years. They were almost always competitive in WAC play and had produced only one losing season while he was here, his first.
But Howard left and the program could never really regain its footing until Ron McBride found his way back to Salt Lake City. McBride, of course, was Utah's offensive coordinator under Howard for all five of his seasons.
Howard was only 1-4 against the Cougars and witnessed some ugly defeats, including consecutive years where BYU dropped 56 points on the Utes.
They were the times that tried men's souls. If you followed Utah football back then, it was never easy, especially when it came to state bragging rights. Even with eight win seasons and second place WAC finishes, it was painfully obvious how big the gap was between the Utes' football program and that of their rival to the south.
It was as wide as the Grand Canyon.
Howard saw that. He could never get over all the blue at Rice Stadium when the Cougars rolled into town. The fans who had been there a week earlier against Wyoming were now cheering for BYU.
That partly led to his resignation. It couldn't be easy investing all you had and realizing that half your fan base were really BYU fans who couldn't get tickets to games down in Provo.
In the 80s, Utah football was the consolation prize for residents in the Salt Lake Valley who just wanted to take in a few hours of football but could never attend a game at Cougar Stadium.
The thing is, of any coach who lined up against LaVell Edwards, outside Ron McBride, Howard was the one who really sparked the rivalry. He brought emotion to it when, for a long stretch, it was nothing more than just another game on BYU's schedule. Certainly it still was, to a lesser extent, because of how awful Utah was in comparison, but from our side, the side that often had been ignored and overshadowed throughout those dominant BYU teams, it had to have given fans something more.
He changed the rivalry. He made it more competitive.
At least in the stands, even if on the scoreboard it was nothing more than another Cougar rout.
Since leaving Utah, Howard has openly said he's still a huge fan of the program and follows them at every chance he gets. Back in 2009, Brad Rock interviewed Howard and he spoke about how much he enjoyed the Sugar Bowl victory over Alabama and he still watches every rivalry game.
I hope he was watching Saturday night.
I hope any fan who sat through the agony of their rival trouncing their program they so love in their stadium was watching Saturday night.
They certainly deserved every second of that humiliation in Provo.
Shock & Awe is right.
Highlights from Saturday's game can be viewed here.
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For purely selfish reasons
I am rooting for byu from here on out. (Except for when they play the Aggies).
Our win won’t mean much if the kewgs suck.
by Utah-UCLA alum on Sep 19, 2011 10:38 PM MDT reply actions
That's an outdated thought.
We don’t care if BYU is any good. In fact, the worse they are the less likely they’ll be relevant in the future. We’re a BCS program now, our in-state rival doesn’t have to be any good. If we win the rest of our games, we’ll be in the Rose Bowl, whether BYU is 10-2 or 2-10. In the old days we wanted BYU to be good because they were one of the few games on the schedule people watched and then at the end of the year if we were undefeated we could look around and say: "Hey, we beat a 10-win BYU team, a 10-win TCU team, and a decent AF team, plus our decent non-conference games, we deserve this BCS bid more than Boise or 1-loss Cal (or Texas or Texas Tech or whomever).
That’s no longer necessary. Win 10 games now and we’re going to the PAC 12 title game. Win that game and it’s Rose Bowl. Lose that game and it’s still a shot at the Fiesta Bowl or the Holiday Bowl, regardless of BYU. We don’t need them to be good. In fact, if they’re 2-10 or, more realistically horrible for them, 5-7, players like Troy Hinds and Zach Lindsay think about de-committing from BYU and switching to Utah, not to mention players currently on the fence like Fanaika and Ofanahengue and Afalava, not to mention future players and kids I don’t know anything about.
Think about it this way, if BYU is horrible for the foreseeable future, then Utah starts to get all the top state of Utah talent. If that were true in the last 5 years, we’d be much more likely to get players like Rowley, Bronson Kaufusi, Ryker Matthews, Quezada (still don’t know how we lost that kid), etc. We don’t need BYU to increase the SOS any more. If anything, we’re better off if they suck so we are the destination for top state of Utah and LDS talent.
So, what I took a long post to say is, our favorite teams should be Utah, the rest of the PAC 12, and whoever is playing BYU, in that order.
Everyone hates a pink-shirt-wearing communist.
by displacedute on Sep 19, 2011 11:28 PM MDT up reply actions
I agree we control our own destiny BUT,
it is late and I didn’t explain myself well.
To me it makes no sense to beat demolish vivisect a lousy team. Last year out of the gate we crushed lousy teams (in hindsight). We rung up 60 points on Iowa State. Big deal. We found out later, we weren’t as good as we thought we were.
This year unlike last year, I am glad we played a tough team like USC early. Even though we lost, it showed me that we could hang and be competitive against a good team. Having played football also, I have a lot more confidence in myself, my team, my coaches, my program if we are beating good teams and not steam rolling patsies.
by Utah-UCLA alum on Sep 19, 2011 11:42 PM MDT up reply actions
with BYU being strong it shows our team that we beat a GOOD team and by the somewhat transitory property of football, extrapolate that we are good too.
As for a plucking top instate and LDS recruits by BYU being weak. Sure if they suck, we can be a black-hole and suck in all the talent. But by virtue of being in the Pac-12, we will do that anyway.
by Utah-UCLA alum on Sep 19, 2011 11:46 PM MDT up reply actions
I agree with this logic
Except when applied to BYU.
There is no more BYU wins help the conference. They are independent, and obviously nowhere near as good as Montana State.
Busting the BCS from the inside now.
I changed my mind
You guys are right. What was I thinking??!!
by Utah-UCLA alum on Sep 20, 2011 5:13 PM MDT up reply actions 1 recs
Bah. That win will mean a lot
If BYU continues to tank, it’ll be the game that broke their will.
Either way, the one nice thing about the teams not being in the same conference is I can freely root for BYU to lose every game, and not care how it affects the conference strength.
Interesting Kyle Whittingham Nugget
That 56-6 game in 80 is tied (with 81) as the 2nd largest amount of points scored by BYU in the Holy War. It is also the largest margin of victory for BYU in the rivalry. Whit was a player for that team. (BTW 81 was the last time the rivalry was actually for an outright conference champion to the winner)
Shock and awe was the 2nd largest amount of points scored by Utah, and the 2nd largest margin of victory for the Utes.
Talk about being on the extreme ends of this rivalry.
If Utah had lost to BYU in 2008 they would not have been the outright conference champion.
It would have been a 3 way tie between Utah, BYU, & TCU if they had lost.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St Larry soon would be there. -Maji Man
Yes but if BYU had won they would not have been outright champion either.
1981 was the last time that whoever won the game would have been outright conference champion.
There have been times where one team winning could have forced a tie (2008), but 81 was the last time both teams lined up knowing, if they win, they are the sole champs.
Criteria is too picky in my opinion
I care more about if conference championship is on the line.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St Larry soon would be there. -Maji Man
by daedalus17 on Sep 20, 2011 11:56 AM MDT via mobile up reply actions
I don't know if it's too picky...
Nothing monumental about a shared title. That happened to the Utes in ’95, they beat BYU down in Provo to split the WAC title and it was still a pretty boring season (7-4 record, no bowl game, some ugly losses).
'99 was also a year Utah beat BYU for a share of the title...
’08 was the last time, as you said, the winning team could force a tie.
In ’07, the Utes could have technically still had a shot at a shared MWC title with the Cougars had they won in Provo, but only because BYU had yet to play SDSU that year (their earlier game was postponed due to fires, I believe, in San Diego). Cougars won both games, though.
I was a student in the Howard era
and it helped cement my distaste for the TDS. Nice trip down memory lane Jazzy.
I grew up LDS in the North East and all I ever heard was BYU this and BYU that. Hell, I even came out here and found that the zoobs had even ripped off one of Penn State’s bumper sticker slogans (If God isn’t a Penn State fan, why is the sky blue and white?)
Boy is it great to be a Ute these days and see a game like Saturday’s. I didn’t have to say a word at church on Sunday, just show up wearing my Ute tie. ’Nuff Sed!
And since we play them in about four weeks I’ll use one of the other Penn State slogans – SHIT ON PITT!!
"It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word" - Andrew Jackson
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