1984 national champions remain a 'band of brothers'

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

It's been a quarter of a century since BYU receiver Adam Haysbert hauled in a Robbie Bosco pass for a game-clinching touchdown in the Cougars' 1984 season-opener on the road against then-No. 3-ranked Pittsburgh.

The play set the foundation for an entire season.

Soft-spoken, quiet and humble, Haysbert used to tell his teammates that his brother, an aspiring actor, would make it some day.

"He's going to be an actor, he's going to be an actor," defensive tackle Jim Herrmann remembers Adam Haysbert saying.

Well, he did. While Adam is a minister in Philadelphia, his older brother Dennis starred in the Fox hit series "24" as U.S. President David Palmer and played Commander Jonas Blane in the CBS adventure drama "The Unit."

Adam Haysbert spoke of dreams and goals of his brother but, with his own catch, he set in motion a grand dream for BYU football, too. That 1984 Cougar squad never lost a game.

"We just had a feeling that we would win, and keep winning," said Herrmann, now an executive with Icon Health & Fitness in Draper. "Our dream came true."

"What we had then, we still have," said backup quarterback Blaine Fowler, now a color analyst for The mtn. network and host of a local radio show in Salt Lake City.

"As a group, we were very close then and we still are today," Fowler said.

"It's like a band of brothers. When you go through something like that, you cannot do it unless you have chemistry, unless you are one. It took that kind of closeness to overcome the challenges, the close games, the key plays we had to get to get a win, to overcome adversity.

"Of all the teams I've played on, been associated with, or covered as a sportscaster over the years, I don't think I've witnessed one as close as that one," Fowler said. "It sticks with you. LaVell Edwards might have had more talented teams; I think Utah's team last year was a great one, so was the 2004 team. But none had the closeness on both offense and defense as our team.

"We had a real mixture of cultures — black, white, Polynesian, players who came from all over the country. We all got along. We watched each other's backs all the time. There was not bickering.