When it comes to big catches in BYU football lore, there are many.
Clay Brown’s improbable touchdown grab in the 1980 Holiday Bowl capped one of the biggest comebacks in college football history. Kelly Smith’s touchdown won the 1984 national championship. Jonny Harline’s touchdown broke Utah’s heart at Rice-Eccles Stadium in 2006. Austin Collie picked up 49 yards on fourth-and-18 in another comeback against the Utes in 2007. And Mitch Mathews silenced Nebraska with a Hail Mary grab as time expired in the 2015 season-opener.
Each dramatic reception holds its own significance, and there is a flurry of others including, more recently, Micah Simon’s 64-yard catch in the final seconds to set up a game-tying field goal at Tennessee in 2019; Puka Nacua’s game-winning circus catch at Boise State in 2022; Chase Roberts’ one-handed touchdown grab to stun Arkansas in 2023; and Darius Lassiter’s 35-yard touchdown in the final seconds to rally past Oklahoma State in 2024.
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“It was so loud, we couldn’t hear each other. We all put (the ear holes) in our (helmets) up to Marc’s mouth when he was telling us the play.”
— Mike Lacey
Years before Simon, Nacua, Roberts and Lassiter etched their moments in Cougar lore, and even before Brown’s legendary grab to beat SMU, there was Mike Lacey — a California kid who flew so far under the radar not even his biggest catch is recorded in the official statistics — but it was big and maybe the biggest in program history.
“There are so many exciting ones, I don’t know if mine is the most significant, and it was so ironic that I was even the guy there,” Lacey told the “Y’s Guys” podcast. “I feel like I’m maybe one of the…
Source link : https://www.deseret.com/sports/2025/05/28/mike-lacey-catch-lives-on-in-byu-football-lore/
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Publish date : 2025-05-31 23:20:00
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