Today, most of the players from that team are in their mid- to late 40s, working in a variety of careers and raising families. Edwards will turn 79 in October. He has 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Twenty-five years later, their lives, and their stories, continue to unfold.

'Rebuilding' year

Of all the great seasons BYU enjoyed in the early 1980s, 1984 seemed the least likely to end in a national championship.

The Cougars had lost quarterback Steve Young, tight end Gordon Hudson and linebacker Todd Shell from the 1983 team that went 11-1, winning its last 11 straight games and finishing with a No. 7 national ranking.

Not only were the '84 Cougars unranked, but in its preseason college football preview, Sports Illustrated picked them to finish No. 3 — in the WAC. It looked like a rebuilding year in Provo for a team breaking in a new starting quarterback and several others at skill positions.

"Going into spring football, there were low expectations around the conference and around the country," Kozlowski says. "We had been so dominant in our conference, everybody thought '84 was the year they could beat us. The guys kind of pulled together. By the end of spring ball, we made a commitment to each other that we were going to try and prove everybody wrong."

When the season-opening opponent, Pittsburgh, debuted at No. 3 in the national rankings, the Cougars sensed an opportunity. On the eve of the season-opener, in a Pittsburgh hotel, the team convened for a meeting.

"We talked about the fact if we could win that game, and go undefeated, we could win the national championship," says Kozlowski.

The relatively low expectations going into the season may have actually helped the '84 team.

"In retrospect, had we started that season in the top 25, we may not have won the national championship simply because we were a young team, we had a new quarterback," Sikahema says. "With the enormous pressure (a national ranking) places on a team, I don't know if we would have been able to do what we did. We started the season with such low expectations, and as the expectations grew, our team grew. We matured as people took notice of us. We had enough veteran leadership on that team to stabilize the team until we matured. We peaked at the right time."

Attributes of a champion

To this day, Edwards maintains that the 1984 team may not have been the most talented squad he coached in his 29 years at the helm. "But it was certainly one of the best teams we ever had because it was a group of guys that got along well," he says.