14 seniors go out with win in final home game

PROVO — BYU's seniors went out exactly the way they wanted to Saturday afternoon, with a 17-10 victory over Utah in their final game at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

In the process, the Cougars earned an outright Mountain West Conference championship and won their 12th straight home game, dating back through the 2006 season.

"It's an unbelievable feeling," senior safety Corby Hodgkiss said. "It was an amazing thing. It was surreal. To be in LaVell Edwards Stadium for the last time and to wear that number (14) and to honor those who have worn it before me, and to play well, I couldn't have asked for more."

Hodgkiss recorded an interception that prevented Utah from scoring a touchdown in the first half and helped knock down a final Brian Johnson pass in the end zone to seal the win as time expired.

"Who can say they won an outright conference championship in their last home game?" linebacker Kelly Poppinga said. "The seniors did it last year (in a road game), and now we've done it. It's a beautiful thing to win a conference championship outright."

Fourteen Cougar seniors were honored before the game as they ran out of the tunnel individually with their names announced over the public-address system at Edwards Stadium and shook hands with Mendenhall near midfield. After the game, each senior received his traditional "Y" blanket.

Besides Hodgkiss and Poppinga, the other seniors are Matt Allen, Judd Anderson, Sete Aulai, Chris Bolden, Kayle Buchanan, Ben Criddle, Quinn Gooch, Bryan Kehl, Andre Saulsberry, Joe Semanoff, Markell Staffieri and Sean Sullivan.

EERILY SIMILAR: Max Hall's fourth-and-18 conversion on a 49-yard pass to Austin Collie with a little more than one minute remaining in the game drew some comparisons to Brandon Doman's conversion of a fourth-and-13 play on a 34-yard completion to Jonathan Pittman in 2000.

The Cougars won that game, in LaVell Edwards' final one as BYU's head coach, 34-27. Mendenhall was asked if Doman, who is now the Cougars' quarterbacks coach, had mentioned that. "He hasn't yet, but I'm sure we'll hear about his accolades in staff meeting," Mendenhall joked.

On the final drive by the Cougar offense, the BYU defense could only watch helplessly on the sidelines. But it was hopeful that the offense would come up with some heroics.

"I knew our offense was capable with that much time left on the clock, having seen them do it against us a hundred of times in practice," Hodgkiss said. "I was just kind of praying."