Trevor's takeaways: Give credit where credit is due

First off, let me say that I’m already sick of hearing a few things about the game on Saturday night. Number one, BYU fans saying the Cougars beat themselves again. Number two, the refs tried to give BYU every chance to win that game. Number three, Ute fans almost lost the game for them.

The first statement is getting old after this season and last. Give credit where credit is due. Let’s break down the turnovers BYU had. The first was an interception thrown by Riley Nelson to Ryan Lacy. Lacy made a great play to pick it off and return it into BYU territory only to have it taken back to the Utah 47 on another bonehead Utah personal foul penalty. That led to a Ute field goal.

Bad throw by Nelson? Yes. Great play by Lacy? Yes. Then Utah proceeded to take advantage of the mistake.

The second was a miscommunication between Nelson and his center. The ball was snapped while Nelson was trying to make a route adjustment with receiver Cody Hoffman. Nelson later credited the Rice-Eccles Stadium crowd for causing so many false starts and miscommunications like this one.

Miscommunication by BYU? Yes. Great job by the Ute crowd causing it? Yes. Then Utah proceeded to take advantage of the mistake.

Once again, give credit where credit is due. Turnovers are a two-way street. One team has to make a mistake and the other has to take advantage, both to make the turnover happen and to make it count.

This does not take into account the four other fumbles that BYU lost and then recovered. That is good luck. Nor does it factor in the two incomplete passes Nelson threw that were reviewed and could have gone either way.

Let’s acknowledge that Utah beat the Cougars. It is beginning to seem as if Utah has never actually technically beaten BYU, rather the Cougars have only ever beaten themselves.

Now, to the other side of things. Yes, the Big Twelve officiating crew was terrible almost all night Saturday. They completely lost control of the game in every conceivable way. It’s clear that officials who have no experience within this rivalry or no exposure to it have no business officiating it.

However, they technically did everything right in that last eight seconds. When Nelson’s floating pass fell to the ground, there was one second left on the clock.

When the following field goal was blocked and BYU’s JD Falslev picked up the ball and ran with it, the play was live. When the ball is blocked backwards, the kicking team can pick it up and try to advance it for a first down or more.

If it is deflected and the ball advances past the line of scrimmage (like 2010), then the defending team must touch it before the kicking team can advance it. While Falslev was being tackled, the fans were beginning another rush onto the field … as were about 30 Ute players and coaches.

The call was correct. However, as Ute head coach Kyle Whittingham said after the game, this is almost never called. It’s like a baseball player leaning into a pitch and getting hit by it. Technically, he is not allowed to do so, but it almost never gets called. You can understand this argument, especially because none of the fans or players who rushed the field had any effect on the play.

That said, you cannot fault the referees for making the correct call.

To all the people blaming the Ute fans for this, every fan base in college football would have done the same thing. Without the fans creating as insane of an environment as has ever been witnessed at Rice-Eccles Stadium, the Utes may not have been in that position to begin with. Remember that muffed snap we already talked about?

Since 1994, every home crowd in this rivalry that has won the game has rushed the field. BYU fans would have done the same thing.

So give credit where credit is due. The officials did not attempt to give BYU every chance possible to win the game. The Cougars fought back when their worst fears seemed inevitable. Think about it, after last year’s 54-10 beating, the Cougars could have easily bought into the idea that they just weren’t in the same league as the Utes. It would have been so easy to just give up when down 24-7. It would have been just as easy on 4th-and-12 deep in their own territory. Instead the Cougars fought back and made it a game while Ute fans all sat in their seats saying, “Here we go again.”

Meanwhile, BYU fans, stop making excuses. If BYU hadn’t been lucky enough to recover four out of five fumbles it lost and get the benefit of the doubt on two key instant replays, we would have been in for another blowout. If you can’t beat a team playing with a quarterback who didn’t get recruited by any division one program, a backup running back or four and two backup safeties, you don’t deserve to win.

A few more takeaways:

— Rice-Eccles Stadium was as raucous as it has ever been. The MUSS caused false starts and fumbles all over the place. Remind me again why BYU cannot put all its students together at LaVell Edwards Stadium? It’s not like it makes any difference for them in the Marriott Center.

— There is no reason for this rivalry to go away. It is uncanny how many of these games end. Chris Hill needs to come down off the condescending hill that he used to criticize BYU of standing on and schedule the game.

— By the time I got home from the game, the edition of SportsCenter devoted a whole 15 seconds to the game. No highlights were shown of a game shown on its own network. It was merely a water cooler explanation of what had happened, as if it had been a bizarre high school game played in southeastern Montana. This was an intense rivalry game played between a Pac-12 team and a ranked opponent. This game deserves more respect than it gets. Name another rivalry that has come down to the last play and has ended within seven points 13 of the last 16 years.

— Also, enough of this “ugly game” stuff. We always talk about how awesome both of these two defenses are and then they get together and play in a great defensive battle and we call it an ugly game. If that same game is played between two SEC teams, it is just beautiful, hard-nosed football.

To get the latest bowl projections and power rankings as well as more takeaways from the rivalry game, go to BYUtahInsiders.com.

Trevor Amicone is the founder of byutahinsiders.com, which covers BYU, Utah and national college football with weekly polls, bowl projections, opinions and analysis. Follow its brand new Twitter page at @BYUtahInsiders and Trevor's at @TrevorAmicone.

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