100 Days, 100 Reasons G6 Football Matters

BYU had Jim McMahon. Wyoming had the weather.

An inch and a half of snow fell on Laramie, Wyoming, on the afternoon of October 24, 1981. It started two hours before kickoff at War Memorial Stadium. Nearly 23,000 fans showed up — 32 degrees, 18 mile-per-hour winds, and a WAC conference game between Wyoming and a BYU squad riding a nine-game conference winning streak with Jim McMahon at quarterback and LaVell Edwards on the sideline.

The snow did not slow Wyoming’s wishbone offense. The Provo Herald’s Bob Hudson put it simply: “That fluffy white stuff didn’t seem to do much to slow Wyoming’s wishbone offense. In fact, it probably helped.”

The runners knew where they were going. The defenders did not. BYU’s defense spent the afternoon planting and cutting on a surface that would not cooperate while Wyoming’s wishbone backs ran downhill through it. All five Wyoming touchdowns came from 30 yards out or more. Phil Davis carried 16 times for 140 yards and three touchdowns. The Cowboys rushed for 350 yards.

Wyoming 33, BYU 20.

The Turning Point

BYU led 14-0 after a Wayman Hamilton two-yard run and a 63-yard McMahon-to-Scott Collie touchdown pass. Wyoming answered with a Phil Davis 30-yard touchdown run, but the extra point failed. 14-6, BYU.

Then came the play that swung the game.

With 9:41 left in the second quarter, BYU drove from its own 20 and appeared to score again — Collie hauled in a five-yard pass in the end zone. Offensive pass interference. Automatic touchback. Instead of 20-6, Wyoming had the ball.

The Cowboys drove for the tying touchdown. Doug Moore sprinted 25 yards into the end zone and ran in the two-point conversion. 14-all.

In the third quarter, Davis broke 32 yards around right tackle to cap an 84-yard drive. 21-14 Wyoming. Then BYU loaded the box to stop the wishbone. Davis faked the option, threw over the middle to James Williams, who took it in stride and ran 81 yards for the score. Two plays. Fifty-eight seconds. 27-14.

“The credit goes to Rocky Long and his defensive staff,” Wyoming head coach Al Kincaid told the Provo Herald. “What we did was try to give them a different look every time. And it worked.”

The Records That Did Not Matter

BYU gained 471 yards of total offense. Wyoming gained 474. The yardage was nearly identical. The score was not.

McMahon completed 29 of 47 passes for 393 yards. He set an NCAA record for total offense against a single opponent — 1,114 yards against Wyoming over three seasons, breaking Mark Hermann’s mark. He also broke Steve Ramsey’s three-year passing record. He would go fifth overall in the 1982 NFL Draft and win a Super Bowl with the Chicago Bears.

BYU rushed for 78 yards. Wyoming rushed for 350. In an inch of snow, the arm does not beat the wishbone.

Edwards — who would lead BYU to an undefeated season and a national championship three years later — tipped his cap in defeat.

“Wyoming has been playing good all year long and they played hard,” Edwards told the Herald. “They don’t turn the ball over. Phil Davis is tremendous. He was patient and he executed well.”

“I’m sure the weather had some effect,” he said, “but we had the lead and were unable to hold it.”

Why It Matters

Not every game in this countdown changed the trajectory of a program. This one did not. Wyoming finished 5-2 in the WAC that season. BYU recovered. The world kept turning.

College football at its best has always been about the places where the game is played and the conditions that test everyone who shows up. Laramie in late October tests all of them — the players running a wishbone in the snow, the coaches adjusting at halftime with frozen hands, the fans who drove to War Memorial Stadium knowing full well what 32 degrees and wind feels like at 7,220 feet.

The biggest programs play their October games in 80-degree sunshine or climate-controlled domes. Wyoming plays at the highest elevation in FBS football, and when the snow comes, it picks a side.

On October 24, 1981, it picked the wishbone. Twenty-three thousand fans watched Phil Davis run through it for 140 yards against a team quarterbacked by a future Super Bowl champion. Forty-five years later, the story is still being told.

They told you it didn’t matter. Here are 100 reasons it does.