BYU coach LaVell Edwards watches from the sidelines during the Holiday Bowl Dec. 21, 1984, in San Diego, California. | Ravell Call
Editor’s note: Third in a series exploring BYU’s 1984 national football championship.
He was in his 13th year of coaching, not exactly a newcomer. His teams had won eight consecutive league championships and three of the last four Holiday Bowls. But entering the national championship debate? Slugging it out with people who played on New Year’s Day and lived in the top 10 and didn’t countenance newcomers well? That was a mountain never climbed.
As a sports writer for the Deseret News covering BYU’s national championship run in 1984, I have an abiding memory of how LaVell Edwards negotiated that minefield.
America got to know Edwards that year. In many ways, they’d never seen anything like him. A head coach without pretense and with no discernible ego. As combative as a golden retriever. He looked like the guy changing your oil.
This was important in 1984, because the college football establishment was none too enthused about BYU’s meteoric rise in the polls.
Without LaVell Edwards running interference with his dry wit and refusal to take offense, who knows how the season might have gone?
The more the Cougars kept winning, the louder the criticisms, the more shrill the insults. LaVell absorbed them like they were compliments.
When coaches groused that the Cougars had an unfair advantage because of the older, more experienced returned missionaries who anchored the offensive line, Edwards smiled wryly and with tongue in cheek said, “That’s one of the reasons we win. Because we’ve got a bunch of old men who know how to hold.”
When the national media began showing up in hordes to watch BYU play, home and away, Edwards, referencing his favorite singer, observed, “It’s like…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/1984-revisited-negotiating-minefield-030000546.html
Author : Deseret News
Publish date : 2024-10-10 03:00:00
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