When BYU ruled the world and what the 1984 title

• Bill Connelly, ESPN Staff WriterOct 18, 2024, 12:57 PM ET

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  Bill Connelly is a staff writer for ESPN.com.

PROVO, UTAH, IS a city of about 115,000, nestled into the rocks on the back side of the Rocky Mountains. It is the fourth-largest city in Utah, and it’s made up primarily of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And because of a miraculous run of football prowess and perfect breaks 40 years ago, Provo will forever be known as a national title town.

In 1984, LaVell Edwards’ BYU Cougars rolled to a perfect record, watched as everyone around them fell at just the right time, and celebrated maybe the least likely title in the sport’s history. And 40 years later, they’re positioning themselves for a spot in an expanded playoff that, in a roundabout way, their own success helped to eventually deliver. Kalani Sitake’s unbeaten squad is up to 13th in the AP poll and hosts Oklahoma State Cowboys on ESPN on Friday night (10:15 p.m. ET). Let’s look back at the 1984 title and toward the promise of 2024.

“You play football, and you win”

“OUR EXPECTATIONS WERE, we were going to win every game,” said ESPN’s Trevor Matich, BYU’s starting center in 1984. “I played in ’79 and ’80 and then ’83 and ’84 — I went on a mission to Mexico in between — and in those years [he played] we lost three games.”

If any mid-major program was going to break through in 1984, it was going to be LaVell Edwards’ Cougars. Edwards was BYU’s defensive coordinator before taking over in 1972 and pulling off one of the most unexpected turnarounds in college football history. BYU had never been ranked before Edwards’ hire and had won more than six games in a season just once between 1933-71. He attempted to deploy an innovative, pass-heavy offense, not because he was a devout believer in the forward pass but because, as he wrote in the American Football Coaches Association’s Football Coaching Bible, “In a situation like that, you have to think outside of the box a little and be more creative than usual. My concern was not whether I would be fired, but when. That had been the pattern for many years. I figured that because I probably wasn’t going to make it anyway, I might as well try something radically different. I decided to throw the football, not just the normal 10 or 15 times a game, but 35 to 45 times per game, on any down, from our own end zone to the opponent’s end zone.”

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BYU went 25-19-1 in his first four seasons — definitive progress — then took things to a different level. Gifford Nielsen threw for 3,192 yards in 1976, and by 1979 Marc Wilson was throwing for 3,720 yards. In 1980, future NFL star Jim McMahon topped Wilson with 4,571 yards and 47 TDs. He was succeeded by future NFL hall-of-famer Steve Young. All the while, the win totals kept improving. BYU won nine games each year from 1976-78, then went a combined 34-4 with three consecutive top-15 finishes from 1979-81. After an 8-4 glitch in 1982, they surged again, beating UCLA and Missouri on the way to an 11-1 record and No. 7 finish in the AP poll.

“You play football, and you win,” Matich said. “That was it. Losing was a tremendous shock.”

Still, the Cougars were expected to take a step backwards in 1984. They began the season unranked after losing Young, star receiver Gordon Hudson and first-round linebacker Todd Shell, among others. Robbie Bosco was slipping on Young’s enormous shoes at QB, but the offensive line and defense still had depth and experience. “From a defensive standpoint, we thought, ‘We really gotta hold up our end of the bargain,'” said Jim Herrmann, defensive end and co-captain. “But we had [linebacker] Leon White, who went to the NFL. We had Kurt Gouveia, who had an all-pro career and was one of the great linebackers in BYU history. We had Kyle Morrell, an All-American safety. We had some really quality players, and we felt like we were gonna be instrumental to our success.”

“The staple was really our offensive line,” Bosco said of a veteran unit led by four seniors, including Matich, all-WAC guard Craig Garrick and current NC State offensive coordinator Robert Anae. “We returned four of the five offensive linemen, and that was a huge comfort for me. I saw what those guys could do, and now they have another year under their belt, so we could be pretty good.

“We knew we were gonna be good, but my question was, how good was I gonna be?” Bosco laughed. “I just wanted to win the WAC championship. That’s what I really cared about because the previous quarterbacks all did that, and I didn’t want to be the quarterback that broke that string. I was crazy nervous in that first game.” It showed. Against No. 3 Pitt in the first game of the season, Bosco threw three bad incompletions on BYU’s first drive and said he thought about benching himself.

Bosco threw a 78-yard pick six to Pitt’s Bill Callahan as the Panthers charged ahead 14-3 in the third quarter, but BYU climbed back to within 14-12 late, and Bosco threw a picture-perfect post route to Adam Haysbert, who scored from 50 yards out with 1:37 left.

“Robbie was asleep on the bus for the first quarter, but he made it out for the second quarter, and everything turned out okay,” Matich said. “We were like, ‘We’re gonna be fine. We got your back, and you got ours.'”

A late stop gave the Cougars an upset win. They immediately jumped back to 13th in the AP poll, and some BYU players immediately began to envision even greater things.

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“The night before we played Pitt,” running back and return man Vai Sikahema, a future eight-year pro, said, “we always had a team meeting without the coaches, and Craig Garrick, he’s passed now, but he was our senior team captain, and he got up in the hotel at Pitt and said, ‘Man, we win tomorrow, and we will have a straight path to the national championship.’ That’s the first time I had ever heard ‘national championship’ at BYU, and it was my fourth year. I thought, ‘Is he nuts?'”

Foge Fazio’s Panthers would suffer a run of injuries and collapse to 3-7-1, but beating the preseason No. 3 team on national television still made a huge impact. This was ESPN’s first season with a full lineup of live college football coverage following the Supreme Court’s ruling that the NCAA could not control and limit television exposure, and BYU-Pitt was the opening game. “I don’t discount the timing of that,” Sikahema said. “We opened the season with a nationally televised game, so the East Coast got to see BYU and our brand of football. I think there’s so many variables, so many factors in that season, and I think that’s one of them.”

Also instrumental: the quarterback. But it took another game before he believed he was up for the job.

“Even after that first game, I’m like, ‘Oh boy, I’m not sure. I don’t know if I’m able to do it,'” Bosco said. “It wasn’t until the following week where I felt super comfortable.”

Against Baylor in Week 2, Bosco threw for 311 yards and six scores as the Cougars romped, 47-13. And after a 38-15 win over Tulsa in week 3, BYU had already jumped to No. 6 in the AP poll.

“I think it was after either the Baylor or Tulsa game, I finally started thinking, ‘Hey, we could make a run,'” Leon White said. “Coach Edwards was definitely against that — he was the person that kept us in line and didn’t let our heads get too big.”

“Oh, this is getting interesting”

JUST THREE WEEKS into the season, the national college football landscape was growing messy. Preseason No. 1 Auburn had fallen to Miami in the Kick-Off Classic, and after the Hurricanes jumped to No. 1, they immediately fell to Michigan in Week 2. Add in BYU’s win over Pitt and two Week 3 upsets (No. 16 Washington over No. 3 Michigan and No. 12 Penn State over No. 5 Iowa), and five top-five teams had already lost. Two more would fall in Week 4, and BYU nearly added to the chaos, needing two late stops — one aided by an incredible leap from Kyle Morrell — to fend off Hawaii, 18-13, after offensive struggles and special teams disasters.

“The play of the game, or year, or century was when Kyle Morrell jumped over the center,” Norm Chow, BYU’s QBs coach and offensive play-caller in 1984, said. “That was not planned.”

Just as the defense had bailed out the offense in Hawaii, it was the offense’s turn a couple of weeks later. Wyoming gained 478 yards and led 38-33 after three quarters in Provo, but BYU matched the Cowboys score for score and got a 14-yard game-winner from Bosco to tight end David Mills with 4:16 left. Bosco threw for 484 yards and four touchdowns as the Cougars outlasted a rising Air Force team, 30-25, the next week.

From there, they shifted into fifth gear. The Cougars won their next three games — including a 48-0 romp over New Mexico — by a combined 124-12. All the while, teams around them in the polls kept losing. No. 1 Nebraska had fallen to unranked Syracuse in Week 5, followed by No. 2 Ohio State doing the same to unranked Purdue the next week. Kansas shocked No. 2 Oklahoma in Week 9, as well, then Houston did the same to No. 3 Texas in Week 11. Heading into their Holy War game at Utah on November 17, BYU was up to No. 3.

“Every time we won a game, it seemed like the teams that were just above us lost,” Bosco said. “The first time I felt like, ‘Oh, this is getting interesting,’ was probably when we went into the Utah game …”

“… We played quite well, especially defensively,” Hermann said. “Offense had some fits and starts, but it’s the Holy War, it’s the Michigan-Ohio State of the intermountain west. It was our big game, and we won.”

LaVell Edwards won 257 career games at BYU. BYU Photo

Bosco threw for 367 yards and three touchdowns, but three interceptions and a fumble threatened to keep Utah in the game. Leading by only three points late, Bosco found Kelly Smith for a four yard score and a 24-14 win. And then things got really interesting.

“I remember getting on the bus, and someone said, ‘Hey, South Carolina lost to Navy,'” Herrmann said.

Indeed, South Carolina, which was 9-0 and ranked a program-best No. 2 following a win over Florida State, had completely melted down, falling 38-21 to a 3-5-1 Navy team. No. 6 Oklahoma had taken down No. 1 Nebraska as well, 17-7. That meant that an LDS school from the WAC would move up to No. 1 — and in late-November, no less.

“We got named No. 1 before our final regular season game against Utah State,” Sikahema said. “That was a freakish feeling to host a game at Cougar Stadium as the No. 1 team in the country. I remember all the signs in the stands.” (Among other things, the signs included lots of Bo Diddley Tech references. “How can you rank BYU No. 1?” Today Show host Bryant Gumbel had recently said. “Who’d they play, Bo Diddley Tech?”) “Nobody expected all these other teams were gonna lose. And they had to ’cause I don’t think anybody was just gonna place us there. And it always when they had to lose, too. If some of these teams had lost earlier in the year, maybe they would’ve recovered, but they lost late in the season just at the right moment. And all of a sudden, here we were.”

After a 38-13 stroll past Utah State in the finale, BYU headed into the postseason in the top spot. While plenty of highly ranked teams were approached about a spot opposite the Cougars in the Holiday Bowl — the WAC champion was obligated to play in the December 21 game — no one signed up. BYU would play Michigan, and it was sort of the worst of both worlds: Michigan was 6-5 and unranked and would offer BYU no strength-of-schedule benefit, but Bo Schembechler’s Wolverines were also talented enough to have beaten Miami early in the year and were only 6-5 because of injuries. Quarterback Jim Harbaugh would miss the Holiday Bowl, but just about everyone else would return.

“The dominoes all fell”

CAMPAIGNING SEASON QUICKLY began. Nick Crane, the chairman of the Orange Bowl’s selection committee, told the Miami Herald that while pollsters had placed BYU in the top spot “out of desperation,” the winner of an Orange Bowl between No. 2 Oklahoma and No. 4 Washington would almost have to be No. 1. Not surprisingly, Oklahoma’s Barry Switzer agreed. “Even in the Holiday Bowl, they’re not playing a top-20 team,” he told the Herald. “I don’t know how you can say they would be No. 1 with that kind of schedule, compared to the one we’ve played.” Never mind, of course, that OU had lost to a 5-6 Kansas team. (Washington head coach Don James tried not to take the bait. “I have to be real guarded,” he joked, “because we play BYU next year in our second game.” BYU would still win that game, 31-3.)

Switzer proved to be a relentless campaigner. It didn’t earn the Sooners the No. 1 ranking, but it did earn him a unique honor: The city of Midvale, Utah, 35 miles from Provo, ended up naming a sewage treatment plant after him.

“Things were getting pretty wild out there, and people were just tearing us apart,” Bosco said. “I think it made us a better football team. It was super fun to be the team that everybody wanted to talk about, even though it was mostly in the negative way. It was like, ‘Let’s go, let’s bring it on.’ We had more media at our practices than ever before, and I did interviews with people I didn’t even know did interviews. It was a lot of fun to be a part of.”

For three quarters, the Holiday Bowl, played in front of a packed house of 61,243, was not fun at all. Bosco suffered knee ligament damage and a cracked rib after a late hit from tackle Mike Hammerstein in the first quarter. He would somehow return to the game in the second quarter, but he threw three interceptions, his receivers were suffering uncharacteristic drops, and BYU lost three fumbles as well.

“I tell you what, they were really good,” Matich said. “We never had doubt, but we knew that the challenge was huge because of the opponent and because our quarterback was hurt.” Matich also had to rein in his emotions after the illegal hit on Bosco. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry — and I’m still mad, I’m still furious at that guy, I thought it was a cheap shot, and maybe it wasn’t, but that’s how I felt.

“I made it my mission to try to return the favor to that guy. … But I was livid. It was intense, let’s put it that way. But we knew we had the players. We knew we had the mentality to pull it off.”

They also had the defense. Despite the countless miscues, the Cougars made stop after stop — for the game, they gained 483 yards to Michigan’s 202 — and trailed just 17-10 early in the fourth quarter.

“We played together the whole year,” White said. “We knew what we could do on defense, and we knew what the offense was capable of doing. They came out slow, and the turnovers definitely hurt us, but we knew at any time Robbie and the offense could explode. So we just knew that if we could keep it close, we’d have a chance.”

As with the opener in Pittsburgh, the offense eventually rewarded the faith. Glenn Kozlowski made an acrobatic touchdown catch to tie the game with 10:51 left, and after throwing one last interception midway through the quarter, Bosco drove the Cougars 83 yards and connected with Kelly Smith for a 13-yard score with 1:23 remaining. Marv Allen picked off a pass with 44 seconds left, and that was that.

Well, sort of. It was only December 21, after all. School was out, the season was over, and everyone dispersed for Christmas and waited for the Orange Bowl. And Switzer and Co. kept campaigning.

“There was just so much time for people to talk about why they shouldn’t pick us No.1,” Bosco said. “It was super hard for our players, and then you’re watching all the games, and we’re not even together to hear what happened. Everybody’s at home.”

“I had confidence because of how revered LaVell was among his peers,” Sikahema said. “With all due respect to Barry, Barry probably had a lot of enemies, and I think there may have been some folks who would have said, ‘You know, we’re gonna stick it to Barry Switzer.'”

The Cougars got a late Christmas gift, however, in the form of one last upset: Washington thumped OU 28-17 in Miami. It was enough to eliminate the Sooners from consideration but wasn’t quite dominant enough to boost Washington No. 4 to No. 1.

“I’m sleeping in a bit, and my dad comes in, he’s already read the paper and goes, ‘Robbie, you guys are No. 1.’ That’s how I found out. And then 20 minutes later our phone started ringing, and I was doing interviews, and it was super crazy.”

“Things fell into place,” Chow added. “The dominoes all fell, the [right] teams all lost.”

How good were they, really?

BYU WON A national title, and Ty Detmer won a Heisman in 1990 (his QB coach at the time: Robbie Bosco), so there was an obvious, tangible benefit to the pass-happy style Edwards adopted. But his BYU offenses — or, more specifically, the offenses of the incredible coaches he hired and gave free rein — were spectacularly influential when it comes to the evolution of football offenses as a whole. Edwards and Bill Walsh had an interactive relationship. Just look at Edwards’ coaching tree. Future Super Bowl winning head coaches Mike Holmgren (BYU QBs coach from 1982-85), Andy Reid (BYU offensive lineman and 1982 graduate assistant) and Brian Billick (BYU tight end from 1974-77, graduate assistant in 1978) all either played or coached for Edwards (or both), as did Chow, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian and Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham, among many, many others. And two of Edwards’ biggest admirers changed the sport in their own right.

“Hal [Mumme] and Mike Leach used to sit in our office just wanting to be a part of football,” Chow said. “I think Mike was a law student or something. But Hal and Mike, the things that were presented to them … all of a sudden it’s the Air Raid offense!” he laughed. “I’m looking at them and saying, ‘What the heck are you guys talking about? That’s the same crossing routes and all that business! But Hal and Mike did a great job in influencing other coaches. And that’s what life’s about. Mike was special. Every time he wrote a book, he’d send me a copy. We thought he was a different guy, but he was bright as all get out.”

With coaches like Mike Holgren (left) on the staff, BYU became a hotbed for offensive innovation. Mark Philbrick/BYU

The 1984 BYU team, however, also eventually impacted the sport in a different way.

By the mid-1980s, the din and debate regarding a college football playoff was already pretty loud, but those in charge of the most powerful bowls always managed to fend off the cries and hold onto their power. That became more difficult when somehow a usurper managed to storm the gates. BYU being allowed to take the national title despite winning merely a minor bowl planted seeds of discontent. The Cougars’ national title has long been cited as one of the reasons why the Bowl Alliance came together beginning in 1992. It was an attempt to assure that the season ended with a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup, and while it wasn’t very good at assuring that, its successor, the Bowl Coalition, was a little better, and finally, in 1998, the Bowl Championship Series indeed gave us a year-end 1-vs-2.

Considering the discontent that emerged from the BCS, considering it was replaced by the four-team College Football Playoff in 2014, and considering said playoff was expanded to 12 teams this season — with a spot reserved for the best team from the Group of Five (the mid-major batch from which BYU emerged) — you could say that BYU’s legacy extends far beyond Provo.

“Whether you agree or don’t agree with what happened in ’84,” Herrmann said, “we have our place in history as being the catalyst, the thorn in someone’s side. And the concept behind the original Bowl Alliance and the BCS was to kind of figure out a way at the end of the year where one always had to play two. It would’ve been great to play whoever two was — either Washington or Oklahoma, depending on the poll.”

By the way, BYU would have had an excellent shot at success in a playoff, too.

“Oh gosh, I wish,” said White. “I’m so excited now for the lower-ranked teams. Now they have an opportunity to actually show how good they are. And I would have loved to have played in a playoff back then.”

Based on the originally conceived rules for the 12-team playoff — automatic bids for the top six conference champions, plus six at-large teams, with the top four seeds reserved for champs — we would have gotten the following CFP in 1984. (Note: The No. 3 team in the AP poll, Florida, was banned from the postseason.)

FIRST ROUND

12 USC (8-3, Pac-10 champ) at 5 Washington (10-1, at large)

11 Maryland (8-3, ACC champ) at 6 Nebraska (9-2, at large)

10 SMU (9-2, at large) at 7 South Carolina (10-1, at large)

9 Oklahoma State (9-2, at large) at 8 Boston College (9-2, at large)

QUARTERFINALS

Cotton Bowl: 1 BYU (12-0, WAC champ) vs. Boston College/Oklahoma State

Sugar Bowl: 4 LSU (8-2-1, SEC champ) vs. Washington/USC

Rose Bowl: 3 Ohio State (9-2, Big Ten champ) vs. Nebraska/Maryland

Orange Bowl: 2 Oklahoma (9-1-1, Big 8 champ) vs. South Carolina/SMU

Based on my estimated SP+ ratings from 1984, BYU ranked fourth overall that season, third if you don’t include Florida. Only Nebraska (which outscored opponents by an average of 36-8 in 10 wins) and Washington (which lost only to USC) ranked higher, but not by much, and with neither of those teams earning byes, BYU would have ended up the No. 2 favorite. Based again on SP+, the title odds were Nebraska 23.4%, BYU 16.6%, Washington 16.5%, Ohio State 12.0%, Oklahoma 10.4%, LSU 5.8%, Oklahoma State 5.4%, SMU 5.3%, Boston College 2.7%, South Carolina 0.8%, Maryland 0.7%, USC 0.3%. Without a single, dominant team, this would have been an absolute free-for-all. But BYU would have been as likely as anyone to emerge victorious.

BYU was in a run of great QBs and WAC dominance when it won it all for 1984. BYU Photo

“We were really good,” Matich said. “Our defensive line — low pad level, flew off the ball. Our secondary was aggressive and flying around. Our linebackers were hitting people like they had a very un-Christian point of view. Our running back, Kelly Smith, ran like a 4.3 forty, one of the fastest college football players in America. Our receivers were just phenomenal. Our offensive line was so steady, it was boring. And we were well-coached. I mean, extraordinarily well-coached.”

“There was a chip on everyone’s shoulder,” Herrmann said, “and football’s an effort sport. We had great coaches, and we always had a culture of really tough-nosed, high-effort defense.”

I tried to get Chow to compare BYU’s title team to those he was a part of in the early-2000s at USC. He deftly demurred but raved all the same. “What was so unique about that team was the comradery,” Chow said, “the friendships that they shared, that culture. It was just so unique. A lot of returned missionaries — older, more mature guys, and you’re never worried about guys going home at night or doing things they’re not supposed to be doing.

“…Bill Walsh always said culture before scheme, and I don’t think it fit any better than with that particular football team.”

BYU in 2024 and beyond

THE 2024 SEASON itself has brought quite a bit of underdog energy to the table. Eight unranked teams have beaten top-10 opponents so far this season, highlighted of course by Northern Illinois’ upset of No. 5 Notre Dame and Vanderbilt’s classic win over No. 1 Alabama.

Granted, we haven’t hit 1984-esque notes just yet. Only one team from this year’s preseason top 10 is currently unranked, and five teams from the preseason top 10 had fallen out of the polls by this point in 1984. Still, there have been surprises and wild moments, and BYU, of all teams, is once again managing to charge up the rankings and, thanks to the expanded CFP, possibly position itself for a top-four seed. The Cougars are up to 13th in the AP poll, having handed both No. 17 Kansas State and No. 21 SMU their only respective losses of the season. Neither team scored a touchdown on a Cougar defense that currently ranks 13th in points allowed per drive and ninth in yards allowed per play. BYU is 6-0, and SP+ gives the Cougars a 28% chance of finishing 11-1 or better and a 23% chance of winning the wide open Big 12.

play

1:20

BYU’s Kingston turns disaster into a jaw-dropping 90-yard punt return TD

BYU’s Parker Kingston initially botches the punt return, but recovers the ball and somehow runs 90 yards to the house for a touchdown vs. Kansas State.

“It’s really hard to play in Cougar Stadium when we get our crowd going,” Bosco said of what is now LaVell Edwards Stadium. “It’s loud and crazy. To see what we did against Kansas State” — BYU forced three turnovers and returned a punt for a touchdown during a six-minute, 28-0 run in a 38-9 win — “and to see what Kansas State is doing to other teams, it’s just like, whoa. It even turned our heads, like, whoa, we might be really good.”

Not too bad for a team that went just 5-7 last season.

BYU was rewarded for its patience early in Kalani Sitake’s head coaching tenure: The Cougars went 27-25 in his first four seasons, but they exploded to 21-4 in 2020-21. Just as the school was rewarded then, it appears it’s being rewarded again for weathering last year’s disappointing Big 12 debut without forcing changes.

Sikahema thinks patience was a no-brainer.

“Kalani is giving us all of it,” he said of his fellow Tongan. “He’s giving the alums, the fans, Cougar Nation, and I think even the leadership of the church, he’s giving us all we want. We want good kids. We want them to reflect the values of our faith. And we want them to just go out and beat people and win games. We’re doing all of it.”

Kalani Sitake (left) and quarterback Jake Retzlaff have BYU atop the Big 12. Tyler Tate/AP

Sitake is only the fourth BYU head coach since Edwards’ hire 53 years ago, along with Gary Crowton (2001-04) and Bronco Mendenhall (2005-15). Only Crowton coached for fewer than nine years.

“I think Coach Sitake has a similar quality [to LaVell],” Matich said. “It is so obvious that he loves his players genuinely, it’s so obvious that he is all-in to do everything possible to win, and it’s so obvious that he’s such a fierce competitor. You put all those things together, and that’s the culture of BYU today.”

You hear “culture” a lot when talking to current and former members of the program.

“I don’t think the culture of BYU will ever change,” Chow said. “So now, all of a sudden you get a couple of decent players and a schedule that breaks for you…” his imagination ran wild for a moment.

“The Big 12 is totally up for grabs,” Matich said, “and if BYU stays healthy — so they don’t have to get too far into that depth, which is still a work in progress — then they’ve got a puncher’s chance because of that defense, and because the quarterback, Jake Retzlaff, is just a flat-out baller. They’re in a very interesting position right now.”

No matter what happens over the rest of 2024, there’s no taking away 1984. Its influence, both local and national, endures. “It’s been 40 years, and a day doesn’t go by where someone doesn’t bring it up to me and talk about it,” Bosco said. “People always wanna ask about it, or they just have their comments on how amazing that was, ‘Thank you for all you did,’ stuff like that. So from that standpoint, it’s awesome, and it really did mean a lot to our school and the community.”

And just so you’ve been warned, there might be some fate involved in BYU’s 2024 run, too.

“My kids told me last night: The last time Vanderbilt beat Alabama was 1984,” Bosco said.

Can’t argue with destiny.