BYU football notes: Cougar locker room celebration features “hunting” and “surfing”
BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall, top, crowd surfs during the Cougars' lockerroom celebration after BYU stunned Nebraska 33-28 on a last-second Hail Mary pass completion on Saturday in Lincoln, Neb.
BYU players, and Cosmo, celebrate Saturday's game-winning touchdown against Nebraska in Lincoln, Neb.
Nebraska safety Nate Gerry (25) makes a third-quarter interception against BYU at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2015.
BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall acknowledges fans as he walks off the field following an NCAA college football game against Nebraska in Lincoln, Neb., Saturday, Sept. 5, 2015. BYU won 33-28. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
When asked his favorite part of the celebration after BYU football’s wild 33-28 win at Nebraska on Saturday, Cougar senior defensive end Bronson Kaufusi told about how he organized the locker room celebration.
“Before Coach (Bronco) Mendenhall walked into the locker room, I got everyone together and said, ‘Everyone be quiet,’ ” Kaufusi said. “We are going to kneel down and when he comes in here, we’ll surprise him and throw him up in the air and have him crowd-surf.”
Kaufusi said that was exactly how it happened.
We had everyone kneel down and be quiet, like we were hunting him,” Kaufusi said with a laugh. “When he came around the corner, we jumped him and just celebrated.”
Mendenhall said the postgame euphoria was “pure elation in the locker room” and called it “one of the greatest celebrations that I’ve ever been a part of in a locker room.”
While the Cougar player “hunted” Mendenhall for the post-game festivities, one of the biggest plays of Saturday’s contest was a key defensive stop where BYU managed to hunt down a Nebraska runner.
With 1:39 on the clock and the home team leading 28-27, the Cougars used their final timeout with the Huskers facing a third-and-3 from the BYU 22-yard line. A first down probably would’ve meant Nebraska could’ve run out the clock.
The Huskers tried to get the yardage on a fly sweep to Jamal Turner, but the Cougars kept Turner from finding a hole to the edge, with linebacker Fred Warner and safety Michael Wadsworth getting credit for the two-yard loss.
That set up a missed field goal for Nebraska and BYU got the ball back with 48 seconds left, which turned out to be just enough time to get the winning drive.
“The third and fourth quarters, the only thing you could really see defensively is that they made some critical stops that they needed to to preserve the game,” Mendenhall said. “We were inconsistent and certainly have a ways to go, but I’m going to draw on the fact that when there were critical stops needed, we made the critical stops. That will be my message before we work on all the other things we need to work on.”
Jonny Rugby
Jonny Linehan, BYU’s star rugby player turned punter, had a terrific debut in Lincoln. The junior punted five times for a 51 yards average (45 yards per punt net) and booted a long of 77 yards. All of Linehan’s punts were, naturally of the rugby variety. Nebraska finished with one punt return for five yards.
Ground to a halt
A big concern moving forward for BYU is the anemic running attack. The Cougars finished with 132 net rushing yards, but quarterback Taysom Hill had 72 of those yards and his backup, Tanner Mangum, added 26. BYU’s running backs – Algie Brown, Adam Hine and Nate Carter – contributed 11 carries for 27 yards combined. Hine had a 20-yard burst in the fourth quarter and a 16-yard run on the game’s final drive.
Waiting it out
“Standing on the sideline, people were saying ‘You have to believe, you have to believe, this is Y,’ ” Kaufusi said. “I just feel like everyone believed.”
From the other sideline
Nebraska coach Mike Riley liked the way his team rallied from the 10-point halftime deficit.
“When it was 24-14, it didn’t look all that good,” he said. “We were kind of sputtering around and they had their way a little bit. We came back, scored a couple of times, made some plays and just kept fighting, right down to the end. We can use that if we continue to fight like that. We can correct some stuff. We’ll be all right.”
As for the final play of the game, this is how Nebraska junior safety Nate Gerry saw it: “We had a plan where I was the jumper and we had some other guys up front that were supposed to kind of jam them and not let their receivers run down the field. Another guy came in on the back side and ran a deep post, and he went up and got it.”
Magic spot
In 2013, Nebraska knocked off Northwestern 27-24 on a Hail Mary pass from backup quarterback Ron Kellogg to Jordan Westerkamp in almost exactly the same spot in the south end zone where Mathews made his game-winning catch on Saturday.
Gerry was asked if he thought about that.
“Not until I got into the locker room. I thought about it,” Gerry said. “It was in the same spot Westy (Jordan Westerkamp) caught it with a backup quarterback to launch it like we with Ron Kellogg. So it’s kind of like a good/bad memory. I don’t know how you would say it.”