Reunion for '84 Y. team

SAN DIEGO — They may be a side note to today's showdown between the Cal Bears and Texas Tech Red Raiders in tonight's PacificLife Holiday Bowl, but BYU's 1984 football team remains the only college football top dog to ever roam this town in bowl-saturated December. Cougar players revisited the scene of their finest moment this week.

This morning in downtown San Diego, BYU head coach LaVell Edwards and MVPs Robbie Bosco and Leon White are to be featured in a Holiday Bowl parade on Harbor Drive, part of a kickoff celebration leading up to the Tech-Bear game at 6 p.m.

It was 20 years ago No. 1 ranked BYU defeated Michigan 24-17 to cap a perfect season at 13-0 and earn the title of national champion by The Associated Press media poll and United Press International's coaches poll.

The Holiday Bowl invited BYU's 1984 team back to town this week with special guest status to the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, the game and other festivities. Earlier in December, Bosco and White, attended a bowl luncheon as members of the Holiday Bowl Hall of Fame.

Officials asked Bosco how many of his teammates did he believe would make a 20th reunion here. "I told them about four to six or so," Bosco said. It turned out to be at least 42 Cougars. Those players, now in their 40s, brought their families and the number soared past 250.

"Shows what I know," Bosco said.

The BYU reunion party plans to meet in a tailgate party in the parking lot of Qualcomm Stadium before tonight's kickoff. One former player who will not join in is Texas Tech offensive line coach Robert Anae, the future offensive coordinator at BYU.

Two decades ago, the Cougars beat Michigan and then had to wait until New Year's Day and a Washington upset of Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl to receive confirmation that the BYU No. 1 ranking, a position held by the Cougars for three weeks, would stand up in the polls.

"Oklahoma was arguably the team to vote, but they lost in the Orange Bowl to Washington," Anae told reporters this week. "I think the voters were sitting there going, 'here's a team that's undefeated.' And I think the year before had a lot to do with it. The year before, we only lost one game with Steve Young.

"So, I think at that point when we finally did go undefeated and everyone else had one loss, I think the voters felt we had been knocking on the door."