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Show Utes shock Wisconsin; Weber wins, Y. loses By GARY R. BLODGETT ; . Sports Editor I University of Utah's Running Utes did just that last Saturday afternoon after-noon and ran up a thrilling 31-28 football victory over the University of Wisconsin, a powerhouse in the Big Ten. BYU, meanwhile, was suffering a humiliating loss to the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs down in Fort Worth; and Weber State's Wildcats beat a much-improved T-Bird team from Southern Utah State College, 36-26, in Ogden. , Utah State's Aggies drew a well-deserved bye for last weekend. According to USU Coach Chuck Shelton it was the second consecutive bye for the Aggies because "we didn't play any better against Kentucky Ken-tucky than if we had stayed home with a bye." Utah's win was not only exciting, it was impressive and for many it was unexpected. After all, Wisconsin like any team from the Big Ten Conference, and especially playing at home must be considered the favorite. And while the Ute "stars" were doing their job, there were a few "unknowns" that came front-center and showed their talent enough for a walk-on placekicker to receive an offer from Coach Jim Fassel of a full player's scholarship. Scott Lieber, of Salt Lake City, booted three field goals the final kick being a 39-yarder with no time remaining on the clock to give the T Utes that precious victory. "I knew I could do it (kick the goals) because I have confidence in myself and I had relatives in the stands," commented Scott. Coach Fassel said he felt the same confidence in the kicker and all the players and "finally they have come to believe in themselves." : The other "hometown" kid to really shine was little Rod Wells, of Tremonton, who stepped in for the injured Eddie Thomas and Shocked Wisconsin and pleasantly surprised the Utes by picking up 119 yards rushing, including a couple of long gainers. - Coach Fassell was optimistic earlier in the week that his standout : rusher (Johnson) would recover trom a knee injury and be fit to play . : But a midweek examination not only put Johnson out for the game, it : placed him on the disabled list for the entire season. ; Wells is only 5-foot 8 and weighs 180 pounds. He knew he would be : playing behind Johnson (an all-WAC returnee) and was given the last : grid scholarship the Utes had to offer just to keep him around. The game started a little dismal for the Utes, with quarterback Chris : Mendonca being caught in the endzone for two points. Then the Badgers Bad-gers kicked a field goal and it was soon 5-0 in favor of the home team. - Utah went up 8-5 on a 22-yard touchdown pass to Curt Jones with ' only 1:05 left in the quarter. The Utes also converted on a two-point i after-touchdown conversion. The "odd" scores of 1 1-8 and 15-1 1 existed with the Utes driving 64 yards downfield with M artel Black scoring after the Badgers had surged ahead on a long run and a two-yard plunge. -: Wisconsin again moved ahead on a second TD by Marvin Artley, the Badgers' most talented back. ; It began to rain in the second half and the two teams continued to have a see-saw battle. By now, Scott Mitchell was leading the Utes at ; the quarterback helm. He moved the Utes to the Wisconsin one and Black bulled his way to paydirt. : The game was beginning to get tense, but the Utes held a slim : seven-point lead with just under seven minutes left to play. : Wisconsin shocked the Utes with a 58-yard scamper by Steve Vinci : and a TD by Artley on a nifty pitchout. This knotted the score at 28-28 I with 6:04 left to play. Ex-quarterback Darren Hughes heaved a halfback pass to Carl Harry r: and it looked like a sure game-winning touchdown. But the ball clonked ; a defender in the back of the head and fell harmlessly to the ground. But the Utes' defense managed to hold a Badger threat and with less i than two minutes to play Harry gathered in a Mitchell pass to set up ; Lieber's final game-winning field goal. In the only game played at home , Weber State found the going a little more than expected, but managed to pull off a victory. But it was the costly mistakes of the visiting T-Birds from Cedar : City who fumbled eight times, but lost only two; and gave up two costly interceptions, the last being a 24-yard TD return by Weber's I Calvin Hampton which gave the Wildcats a comfortable 36-19 lead with only 3:40 left in the game. Weber, too, had its turnover problems, including three intercepted passes (one for an SUSC score); two fumbles; 120 yards on 10 penalties; penal-ties; and some very poor punting. Coach Mike Price said it might have been a matter of not getting his team up for the T-Birds, "but whatever the reason, I was not pleased with the execution of either the offense or the defense in this game." "They are a real good Division II team, but we didn't play up tc our potential. I hope we improve for conference competition that begins next Saturday against Boise State." Weber took advantage of a penalty situation and attempted an on-side on-side kick which was recovered by the Wildcats' tight end Peter Macon on the SUSC 43-yard line. Two plays later, a pass from Jeff Carlson to Jon Fuller put WSC ahead 20-7. BYU Coach LaVell Edwards and his coaching staff must have been asking themselves over the weekend: how do you stop the quarterback option? The Horned Frogs of Fort Worth weren't fancy with the veer-wishbone veer-wishbone offense they ran all night but they certainly executed their plays well thus baffling the BYU defense from the start to finish. When you have a quarterback that can really scramble, such as David Rasco of TCU, it makes the offense even tougher to contain. Rasco rushed on 23 designed plays for 105 yards. Included was a 34-yard TD run around end. Then when the pursuit got hot, and the Cougars zeroed in on Rasco, the nifty little QB would simply pitchout to his two trailing halfbacks-Tony halfbacks-Tony Jeffrey, who ran 107 yards on 19 carries or Tony Dalhard who recorded 99 yards on just 8 carries, including a 58- yard TD run. , ' The Homed Frogs made it look so easy and so precise. Their execution was almost flawless, and it made the TCU fans wonder how the Horned Frogs had lost its two first games of the season. But Saturday's tilt against BYU was the season opener for the Texans, and they haven't lost but a handful of openers at home iri the past 75 or more yCCoach Edwards said he was not pleased with the Cougars performance perform-ance "We were still celebrating our win over Texas and let the week of intense practice get away from us. We just weren't ready to play," he SaTCU used a 3-5-3 defense. They didn't figure BYU could run the ball well and they couldn't, or at least didn't in this game. This meant the Couears had to pass even when they didn't want to. They also committed commit-ted seven turnovers, and failed to capitalize on TCU miscues which gave the Cougars good field position. So confident were the Horned Frog's defense that they applied a simple three-man front line, with all the others dropping off on pass defense. The Cougars who had netted only seven yards rushing in ' three prior games gained only 39 yards on 29 carries. BYU will be looking forward to opening Western Athletic Conference Confer-ence play against New Mexico in Albuquerque next Saturday night but the Cougars had better forget the TCU nightmare and get back to : their own brand of football. 1 |
