BYU football: Players rise and doubt not

SEATTLE — Jan Jorgensen had no doubt, neither did Max Hall.

Even before officials threw a flag on Washington quarterback Jake Locker for excessive celebration after scoring the last touchdown of the game Saturday in Husky Stadium, bodies and faces on BYU's sideline signaled to Bronco Mendenhall the defense would block the point-after try and deliver win No. 2.

Cougar defensive end Jorgensen, the Mountain West's sack leader a year ago, then shot the gap and got a paw on Ryan Perkins' kick, preserving a thrilling 28-27 BYU win.

It was the kind of play that a football player could hang his career on. It was exactly the kind of play BYU defeated UCLA with last December in Las Vegas.

"It's up there," said Jorgensen. "I'll think about it after a huge play, but when the season is over, I'll look back at it and see. I'm not trying to rank anything, I just want to focus on beating UCLA now."

"Anytime you get a blocked PAT, like the Las Vegas Bowl, it is surprising," said Hall. "But I was confident, surprised, but confident it would happen."

The play call was a middle block.

Mendenhall turned to assistant Paul Tidwell and asked him if there was any chance Washington would fake a kick on the 35-yard PAT attempt, lengthened by the 15-yard penalty with two seconds left.

"There's always a chance," Tidwell answered.

Mendehall then called for an all-out rush. "All the players nodded like they believed they could block it," said the head coach. "I could tell by their smiles, they had the confidence."

"We doubled up on the guards," said Cougar defensive line coach Steve Kaufusi. "Jan was supposed to take three steps and get his hands up, he did, and it worked."

Said Jorgensen, "What went through my head, and everybody else's head is that we are supposed to win this game.

"No doubt in my mind we were going to block that kick as soon as that penalty happened. We were focused on blocking that PAT before the penalty happened."

What went through a lot of UW folks minds after this game was the gutsy call by the Pac-10 officiating crew doing this Pac-10 home game.

An excessive celebration penalty because Locker threw the ball in the air?

Yep. It's in the rules. You can't hurl the ball toward the lights after a score.

But in the aftermath, Husky fans moaned long and loud on the UW flagship radio station call-in show about this penalty and how it "robbed" Washington, dastardly separating the Huskies from a much-needed home-opening victory.

"I'll tell you what, that was a long four-minute drive and it took everything out of us chasing Locker around," said Jorgensen.