Steve Young and Gordon Hudson.

Now that's a duo guaranteed to get a first down back in the day. It helped get both to the National Football Foundation College Football Hall of Fame.

Young is already in, Hudson is officially to follow in ceremonies later this year.

It is interesting to put into perspective what those two did, working in an offense under Norm Chow and Mike Holmgren, which, at the time, was one of the most explosive in college football.

It was an era before USC hired Chow and discovered how productive a pro-set passing offense could be. It was before the Big 12 quit playing a smash mouth cloud-of-dust Barry Switzer game that led to today where the Sooners, Texas and old Texas Tech have taken to the air and Oklahoma has a Heisman Trophy quarterback.

Back in the day, Young to Hudson was called the best QB to TE combination in history. In the two seasons they played together, they combined for 114 passes for 1,524 yards.

Back on Nov. 14, 1983, Sports Illustrated writer Jack McCallum, in a piece titled "The Steve and Gordon Show," wrote:

"No quarterback-tight end combo in recent years has worked so well for so long, not Mark Herrmann and Dave Young at Purdue (who combined for 67 completions in 1980), not Todd Dillon and Darren Long at Long Beach State (68 in '82), not even McMahon and Clay Brown at BYU (48 in '80). When Young and Hudson finish their college careers after the Holiday Bowl in December, in all likelihood they will have combined for more than 130 receptions in two years, making them arguably the best college quarterback-tight end tandem in history."

It didn't get to 130 back in 1983. Hudson missed half the SDSU and USU games (concussion) and all of a 31-9 win over UTEP (knee ligament strain).

I remember Hudson pulling up in a nice shiny Corvette at KEYY Radio Station in southwest Provo to do a talk show with me when he was headed toward the NFL as a first round pick by Seattle in 1984.

He was a laid-back, quiet type, opposite of Young, who could get pretty wound up.

Hudson was excited and felt lucky to have played with Young, one of the most accurate passers of his day. And his first QB was another All-American, Jim McMahon. Three of Hudson's NCAA records would stand until today: career catches per game (5.4), career yards per game (75.3) and most yards by a tight end in a game (259).

The Young-Hudson show appeared as an easy exercise of curls and hooks.

Young would fire and Hudson's big soft hands would gobble up the ball. It was almost unstoppable.