Hackenbruck needs a win to save dinner

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Utah middle linebacker Tommy Hackenbruck has a bet riding on Saturday's Fiesta Bowl.

It's an inside deal with a former teammate.

Long before former Ute quarterback Brett Elliott led Linfield College to a perfect season and the NCAA Division III football crown, he and Hackenbruck came to an agreement.

"We had a little gentleman's wager," revealed Hackenbruck. "First guy to lose has to buy the other guy dinner. Hopefully after this game it will just be a push."

The fifth-ranked Utes can close out a 12-0 season with a victory over Pittsburgh at Sun Devil Stadium.

Playing in the Fiesta Bowl has additional significance for Hackenbruck, who closes out his collegiate career on New Year's Day. It reminds him of a conversation he had with Elliott four years earlier in their dorm room at the University of Utah. The Oregon natives were lamenting the Utes' 4-7 season and wondering if they had made a mistake by turning down scholarship offers from Oregon State. The Beavers, after all, went 11-1 and defeated Notre Dame (and an assistant coach named Urban Meyer) 41-9 in the Fiesta Bowl.

Though Elliott eventually opted to leave Utah, Hackenbruck is glad he chose to stay.

"The situation worked out," he said.

PLAYING THEIR PART: Even injured freshmen who won't play in Saturday's Fiesta Bowl get a little time in the limelight this week.

Redshirt freshman Alex Puccinelli and true freshman John Peel represented the Utes at the Fiesta Bowl Youth Football Clinic at the Salvation Army's South Mountain Youth Center Thursday.

The two Utes spent a couple of hours with a group of 8- to 14-year-old football players.

"We just talked to them about school. That's what they wanted us to talk to them about — staying in school and about how you can't go to the next level without school," said Puccinelli, a backup linebacker from Toluca Lake, Calif., who played in five games this season and had a tackle-for-loss in the season opener against Texas A&M, the victory that helped get Utah noticed by pollsters and probably helped them most in the BCS rankings.

Puccinelli and Peel also talked to the kids about, "Not giving up on your dream, if you have one, and not letting anybody get in your way," said Puccinelli.