50 Greatest BYU football plays

I just watched the BYUtv special counting down the 50 greatest BYU football plays of all time. The Miracle Bowl hail mary pass from McMahon to Brown was the second best and Beck to Harline was #1. Tough to argue with that.

But there was much to argue with the rest of the list.



It was more like the 50 Greatest Plays in BYU Football History**



**Actually, just the plays for which our panel - most of whom did no research as evidenced by not knowing much about the plays almost as if watching them for the first time as the rest of us (like Jan Jorgensen talking about how tough it was to play Air Force in Colorado Springs during a highlight in 1985 as BYU scores a TD in an endzone marked "BYU") - came up with off the top of their heads, and which we knew BYUtv for sure had the rights for, and which we didn't check to see if there were other plays that we were pretty sure we didn't have the rights for (KVN's game winning sack, fumble, TD vs Ole Miss) and we didn't know who to ask to see if we could show a five second highlight; but other than that, it was the 50 Greatest Plays in BYU Football History.

Agreed with Spiff. There were some odd choices for inclusion and exclusion. Where was Curtis Brown's TD run to put him as the leading career rusher? How about Collie's TD catch v. Notre Dame his Freshman year? Both of those were better than the BSU inclusions, and probably even better than the Hoffman catch v. OSU, which was nice, but not top 50 worthy...



BTW McMahon to Brown should have been number one. Beck to Harline was nice, but not the best play in the history of the school....

I was ok with most of the selections, but I did notice that Curtis Brown's touchdown run against UNM to become BYU's all time rushing leader was missing. I also would have liked to have seen more than one play from Ty Detmer. Like the one where he got hit on the chin against Miami as he was completing a pass to Chad Lewis and then had to run to the sideline to get his chin stitched. That was a great play.

Way too many Riley Nelson plays. For one of, if not the worst, QBs in recent history he sure had his fair share.



Nelson fumbling around against Hawaii is hardly a top 50 play.



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

Gunk wrote:
Way too many Riley Nelson plays. For one of, if not the worst, QBs in recent history he sure had his fair share.



Nelson fumbling around against Hawaii is hardly a top 50 play.



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

Amen Brother!!

They weren't Riley Nelson plays. They were BYU plays. Don't like the Riley hate prevent you from appreciating good (to great) plays.



I don't know how you discount that juggling catch against OS by Hoffman. The ball was knocked out of his hands by the defender when he jumped to grab it, then as he was falling he bobbled it again and finally caught it while he was laying on his back with two defenders all over him. That was a great catch and play - by a BYU player.



The second "Riley" play featured an offensive lineman getting up, chasing down a defender and knocking the snot out of him - all without a helmet- freeing up Riley to make a throw to Hoffman who caught the ball at the five and then fought his way through the defense to stretch the ball out to the goal line to score a TD. Great effort by two players not named Riley made that play happen.



The third "Riley" play occurred with 11 seconds left in the ball game and the defense thinking that BYU was going to spike the ball to stop the clock before going to the win. Good coaching and preparation gave BYU a play that they executed perfectly. Riley, the OL and Hoffman (again) didn't stop playing. Riley was calling out, "Red Alert!" - which the defense took to mean spike it - the ball was snapped, he faked the spike and then hit Hoffman who actually ran a route to the end zone and scored. BYU won ANOTHER bowl game on a last second play.



And the fourth "Riley" play was just a great play. A blitzing defender comes in free and is about to sack Riley. He ducks underneath the blitzer but then gets stepped on by an offensive lineman. As he's losing his balance and falling backwards, he throws the ball down field to Hoffman who makes a stretching one-handed catch and strides into the endzone. Great effort by Hoffman to make the catch. Great athleticism by Nelson to stay on his feet and get the ball down field.



I think there may have even been a fifth "Riley" play. The Marcu Matthews tipped TD catch against Utah State with 11 seconds left to complete the comeback against the Aggies. Again, Riley made a throw to a receiver who was being held/interfered with and the ball was deflected and Matthews made a reaction catch in the endzone for the dramatic victory.



It's a bit of an insult to Cody Hoffman, Matt Reynolds, Marcus Mathews and the other BYU players involved in those plays to call them "Riley Nelson" plays. There were some great individual efforts by guys in BYU blue.



Not every play or throw Riley made was the worst play ever in the history of BYU football. He made some plays; some of them were quite remarkable. Some of that remarkableness came from his efforts, but most of those plays were because of the great efforts of his teammates.



Riley gave BYU fans some great memories - and some awful memories. But to discount the great plays that happened because we don't like the bad ones is just dumb.

Spiff, for what it's worth, I get what you're saying about what I was lazily calling "Riley Nelson plays" but none of the plays will stand the test of time to be a BYU top 50 play, they were simply more recent in time than say the Curtis Brown run, or Chad Lewis' vault over a defender, Or even Oneil Chamber's return against Utah. They were great plays, just not better than some more distant plays.

Agreed. The real indictment on BYUtv for calling this the "greatest" plays in BYU history and then adding a caveat.



Calling it 50 Great BYU Football Plays and not numbering them might have been a better idea and created less controversy.



If you're going to call them the "greatest" plays then you need to find a way to get footage of the plays you don't have the rights to. I'm guessing BYUtv went to little effort to procure to those other plays.

Spiff, those were all fantastic plays by all involved, including Riley. But 10% of the top 50 plays coming out of the last two years of football is lopsided. Where was Steve Young? Where was Luke Staley blitzing through linemen? Great plays by BYU's greatest in the biggest games. Perhaps it came down to video rights, in which case shame on BYUtv.



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

This was really like: the 50 greatest plays in recent memory, plus a few of the all time greats thrown in!

Gunk wrote:
Spiff, those were all fantastic plays by all involved, including Riley. But 10% of the top 50 plays coming out of the last two years of football is lopsided. Where was Steve Young? Where was Luke Staley blitzing through linemen? Great plays by BYU's greatest in the biggest games. Perhaps it came down to video rights, in which case shame on BYUtv.



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

It did come down to video rights - Dave McCann said so at the top of the show. That alone should have stopped BYUtv from calling them the "greatest plays" - as that implies there weren't any plays better. By not being able to show plays for which BYUtv didn't have or couldn't get the right, they should have just called them great plays - and don't think any one would argue that all 50 plays were great plays.



But some of them clearly don't belong on a "Greatest" list. The Red Alert play - meh. There have been other juggling catches. A punt return where the returner made no one miss because the blocking was so good all they had to do was run in a straight line - meh.



But at the same time, the Riley hate hopefully only has 23 days 2 hours and 51 minutes of life left because by then the season will have started!

Hawkwing you are correct, this was way too lopsided with plays from recent memory. A top 50 list of all time would absolutely have to include plays from Wilson, Sheide, and some of the early greats who first put BYU on the football map. But dang, watching that made me VERY excited for football season. Hopefully Hoffman, Van Noy and company can produce some plays this season that will become my new favorites.

RiseShoutCougs wrote:
Hawkwing you are correct, this was way too lopsided with plays from recent memory. A top 50 list of all time would absolutely have to include plays from Wilson, Sheide, and some of the early greats who first put BYU on the football map. But dang, watching that made me VERY excited for football season. Hopefully Hoffman, Van Noy and company can produce some plays this season that will become my new favorites.

I agree, can't wait for a new set of favorite plays this year. I have a feeling our defense is going to provide some amazing ones.

Did they get all the footage from Youtube? I thought BYU had some original game tapes to use. The quality on some of these is pretty bad. I think it was skewed towards recent memory because a) that's what most fans today know, and b) the Lavell years had very few clutch situations that called for big plays. '74-'91 was pretty much mopping up WAC featherweights, especially Utah. Then in the bowl game it was BYU that got taken to the woodshed. I don't even know if tape still exists from the Hudspeth years and prior. You would think Virgil Carter, Pete Van Valkenberg or Eldon Fortie would have had a few big plays.