Posted on: Saturday, September 7, 2002
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Early missed opportunities haunt Warriors
| • | Cougars slip past Warriors |
| • | Bass sparks ground attack |
| • | BYU QB says he got rid of the ball in time |
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
PROVO, Utah — Ordinarily a three-point deficit at halftime is not something the Brigham Young University football team takes into its LaVell Edwards Stadium locker room like a new-found friend.
At home, in front of 63,085 blue-clad, leather-lunged faithful, it does not usually scurry up the tunnel to its locker room finding consolation in trailing on its own end zone scoreboard.
But this wasn't your run-of-the-mill University of Hawai'i visit to town and, as Cougar quarterback Bret Engemann put it, "it was a relief to be down only three points (17-14) at the half. I felt like we could pull it out if it was that close."
Associated Press That it was that close; that UH hadn't gone in leading by 10 points —or more — was a situation the Warriors would come to rue well into the night after a 35-32 loss. While this one wasn't over until BYU recovered an onside kick attempt with 29.9 seconds left, one of the mightiest of bids for a breakthrough UH win here after seven consecutive losses started to get away from the Warriors in the first half.
"You don't like to think about the points you let get away coming back to haunt you, but that's what usually happens," quarterback Tim Chang acknowledged. "Especially in this game. We definitely had our chances."
"We had chances to make plays — we just didn't make enough of them," head coach June Jones said.
The Cougars, winners of 10 in a row in their stadium, were there to be had — especially early when breakdowns in their special teams and the inability to get started against the UH defense made them vulnerable.
If this had been a boxing match, the Cougars would have been ripe for a standing eight count in the first half, where the Warriors scored early and threatened to score a lot.
But UH never could come up with the punch to keep the Cougars down.
A missed field-goal attempt on a 38-yard shot that hooked wide left in the first quarter, and an interception at the BYU 22 in the second were all that stood between the Warriors and a commanding first-half lead.
With that kind of an edge and with the coming of a storm that drenched the stadium in the third quarter, you would have had to like the Warriors' chances to make it back-to-back wins against BYU.
"Even with all the mistakes we made (four interceptions among them) we were still in it to the end," Chang said. "Think where we would have been if we didn't have those first-half errors."
Instead, the inability to stuff the Cougars into a deeper hole would give them both the opportunity and the confidence to pull this one out.
"As quick a start as they got, to be down only three points, was pretty good," Engemann said. "We figured it would be a real battle, a real close game, but they jumped out fast. They're a great team and they came after us."
"We could have all but put them away in the first half," said offensive tackle Wayne Hunter. "We definitely had all the chances to."
"We just stopped ourselves at the crucial times," UH guard Vince Manuwai said. "It isn't one person's fault. It was just execution at the wrong times."
So, on a night when points were at a premium, it was the ones the Warriors left on the table that would hurt most.
UH linebacker Chris Brown, right, brings down BYU running back Curtis Brown near the goal line.
