Blocked! BYU wins on last play

LAS VEGAS — As it turned out, the Letdown, er, Las Vegas Bowl wasn't so bad for the Brigham Young University Cougars after all.

Can it ever be a bad trip to Vegas if you come out ahead?

It just takes a good, healthy scare to put things into perspective.

The Cougars blocked UCLA's 28-yard field goal try on the game's final play, to claim a 17-16 win, Saturday night at Sam Boyd Stadium.

So in the end, much of the negativity about playing a fourth-place team from the Pac-10 dissipated into the cool desert night. The Cougars were happy.

The 35,000 or so BYU fans who bought up all the tickets in October were happy. The bowl people were happy.

"We're happy whenever we win," said defensive end Jan Jorgensen.

As coach Bronco Mendenhall would say, the Cougars and their crowd were fully tested, invested and manifested.

Now, which way to the buffet line?

"The game was somewhat in question, but the top end of the Mountain West can compete with anybody," said Jorgensen. "We deserve to be considered by more than just ... you know, this is a great bowl, but we have to get a better opponent, someone that's ranked up there with us. We deserve more."

As it turned out, they barely got past the team they did play.

The Cougars finished the season ensured of a ranking in the final poll. The win avenged one of just two losses the Cougars suffered during the season, a 27-17 defeat at the hands of the Bruins in September.

Just wondering, is Tulsa — the other BYU loss this season — available for a do-over next week?

Ten wins in a row was an impressive finish for a team that began the year 1-2. After all, this wasn't supposed to be a particularly good BYU team. John Beck, the star of last season, is playing in the NFL.

Johnny Harline, Curtis Brown and other key players are gone, too. How good could the Cougars be with a quarterback who had never taken a snap as a Division I player and a running back who last played in high school?

Pretty good, actually.

So much for the theory that experience is the key to consistency. For the most part, these guys were a consistent as the lunar tides.

In process they virtually skipped the School of Hard Knocks and went straight to graduation.