BYU, we hardly know you in Tucson; Cougars, Arizona in Big 12 changes that | Greg Hansen

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Star’s ongoing “Big 12 Blitz” series, where we introduce U of A fans to the on- and off-field need-to-know details surrounding each member of the new 16-team Big 12. Today: Brigham Young University, located in Provo, Utah.)

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BYU, we hardly know you.

Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, we sort of forgot you. The Cougars have only played football in Tucson twice in the last 47 years, twice in men’s basketball.

Before that, from 1957-77, the Cougars were a regular at Arizona Stadium. Nothing special, middle of the pack fodder.

But when the Wildcats and Cougars split conference affiliations in 1978, BYU took a trajectory that no one in the old WAC conference could’ve seen coming. National champions, 1984. Heisman Trophy winner, 1990. Seven years finishing in the AP’s Top 10.

Perspective: Arizona won 71 games in the 1990s, its best-ever decade of football. BYU won 87.

For a few decades, the Cougars seemed to ship a quarterback to the NFL year after year: Jim McMahon. Steve Young. Gifford Nielsen. Heisman winner Ty Detmer. The true Quarterback U.

Coach LaVell Edwards became BYU’s version of Lute Olson. Super Bowl coaching rosters became populated with those from Edwards’ coaching tree: Andy Reid, Brian Billick, Mike Holmgren, as well as big-game college coaches Steve Sarkisian and Kyle Whittingham.

Only those whose tear-stained Arizona football roots run a half-century deep remember that 50 years ago this fall the Cougars became Spoiler U, ruining what looked to be Arizona’s ascent as the game’s nouveau power.

That role shifted forever on October 26, 1974 at Arizona Stadium. The Wildcats stalled. The Cougars went into football orbit.

On that fall afternoon in ‘74, Arizona was 6-1 and ranked 16th, its highest regular season rank ever. The Cougars were 0-3-1. Edwards, then in his third year at BYU, didn’t seem to have any more coaching juice than his fired BYU predecessors Tommy Hudspeth, Hal Mitchell and Tally Stevens, three men who coached 16 seasons of sub-.500 football.

BYU had never been ranked in school history, more than 50 years.

But when BYU stunned Arizona that afternoon, 33-17, the Salt Lake Tribune added sauce to the surprise, writing: “The win might easily be the biggest in BYU history.’’

For the next three decades, BYU football never looked back. The Cougars named their stadium after Edwards, attendance soon rose from a dismal 19,597 for a 1973 Arizona-BYU game in Provo, to year-after-year of sellouts at 65,000 per game.

BYU became a national football brand. Arizona became a basketball school.

“Arizona’s loss was a terrible blow,’’ the Salt Lake Tribune reported in 1974. “The Wildcats figured on winning this year’s WAC title and going to the Fiesta Bowl.’’

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The shock factor at Arizona Stadium that day was so real that BYU cheerleaders grabbed an abandoned “Fiesta Bowl’’ sign from the Zona Zoo section, carried it to the 50-yard line and threw it to the ground.

The LaVell Edwards story is one for the books. The record books.

He grew up in the shadow of BYU’s football stadium and old Lincoln High School. He was not recruited by his hometown BYU Cougars, but rather by the rival Utah State Aggies, 125 miles north, where he became a starting center and team captain.

After two years of military service, Edwards was hired as the football, wrestling and golf coach at Salt Lake City’s newest suburban school, Granite High. Edwards stayed there, mostly obscure, for nine years before getting a job as a BYU assistant.

Talk about the hire of a lifetime.

By 1977, Edwards had been offered head coaching jobs at Miami and Missouri. In 1982, Colorado offered him its coaching vacancy. In 1984, the Detroit Lions hoped to hire Edwards. In 1986, the Texas Longhorns called.

Not interested. Edwards made BYU a lifetime job. He won 257 games as a Cougar. For some perspective, Dick Tomey won 95 games across 14 years at Arizona.

Edwards played at my alma mater, Utah State, whose most despised rival is, yes, BYU. I found it difficult to get past the BYU thing for decades, cheering against the Cougars every chance I got. I was unable to find a place in my heart for a fellow Aggie, perhaps THE Aggie.

But one day in the winter of 2000, shortly after Arizona fired Tomey, I was told that long-time BYU offensive coordinator Norm Chow was one the UA’s “hot list.’’

Edwards had retired a month earlier; I got his phone number from another Aggie, Chris Pella, a long-time BYU assistant coach who has been my friend forever.

I gathered the courage to phone Edwards. He answered on the first ring.

I Identified myself, asked about Chow, and told him I was a fellow Aggie.

He asked if I knew Jay Van Noy and Earl Lindley, Merlin and Phil Olsen, and several other prominent Aggies. We must’ve talked for 20 minutes. He told me how much he admired Dick Tomey.

My angst for BYU, 50 years strong, vanished that day.

“Norm’s not going to Arizona,’’ Edwards told me. “He’s going to be USC’s offensive coordinator. Keep your eye on John Mackovic.’’

That’s the only time I talked to Edwards, but thereafter my life-long distaste for the Cougars diminished and disappeared.

When Arizona was absorbed by the Big 12 a year ago, I found comfort that the Wildcats and Cougars would become big-game rivals in all sports. The relationship that quietly went dark in 1977 has been revived.

Welcome back.

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