National champs: Cougars finished on top after going 13-0 in 1984

Editor's note: This is first in an eight-part series celebrating the 25th anniversary of BYU's 1984 national championship.

PROVO — Twenty-five years later, it reads kind of like a made-for-Disney movie script.

The story of BYU's improbable 1984 national football championship season had unlikely heroes (Adam Haysbert, for example), villains (Bryant Gumbel and Barry Switzer come to mind), dramatic moments (who can forget the image of Robbie Bosco hobbling around on one leg in the Holiday Bowl?), serendipitous events (one by one, teams ahead of the Cougars in the polls fell), an unmistakable underdog quality (devoid of star players at the time, BYU started the season unranked), a certain moxie (four fourth-quarter comebacks) and a penchant for accomplishing something unprecedented (how in the heck did a team from the Western Athletic Conference, from the Mountain Time Zone, win a national title?).

"The way it all came together, it almost had to work just the way it did for it to happen," recalls legendary coach LaVell Edwards. "It was a magical year."

Maybe it was magic. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was destiny. Maybe the Cougars were somewhat lucky, too.

"In spite of everything we did, it still took a little bit of luck," admits Glen Kozlowski, a wide receiver on the '84 team. "It still came down to a lot of factors that we had no control over."

"It was the confluence of the right group of guys with the right scheme against the rest of the college football world of that moment," explains '84 offensive lineman Trevor Matich, who is now an ESPN college football analyst. "BYU was the mouse that roared. Nobody knew who we were. We were the first school nobody had ever heard of that rose up and grabbed the college football world by the neck and said, 'You will know who I am. You have no choice.' "

The 1984 season catapulted the BYU football program — as well as the LDS Church and the state of Utah — into the national consciousness.

"It was really crazy with all of the media (attention)," says Bosco. "I can remember after the Pitt game going up to Salt Lake with LaVell to be on Good Morning America. It was like, 'Why do they want to talk to us?' "

The season began with a stunning upset over No. 3 Pitt on the road and culminated in a victory over a Michigan team with a mediocre record in the Holiday Bowl — amid controversy as people around the country debated BYU's worthiness as the nation's top-ranked team.