BYU hopes bowl win leads it back to glory days

He's far less famous than any of the quarterbacks and receivers who have made the best-remembered plays in recent Brigham Young football history, but defensive linemen Eathyn Manumaleuna did as much for the present and future of the Cougar program with his outstretched fingers as John Beck, Jonny Harline, Max Hall or Austin Collie ever did in a single moment.

By jumping barely off the ground at the line of scrimmage and blocking UCLA's try for a seemingly automatic, game-winning field goal, the 280-pound Manumaleuna somehow preserved the Cougars' 17-16 victory in the Las Vegas Bowl.

That was not the only thing he saved.

There's BYU's winning streak, now extended to 10 games.

There's the Cougars' national ranking, likely to end up somewhere in the middle of the Top 25 and stay in that range when the preseason poll is released next August.

There's the pride of the Mountain West Conference, which almost absorbed the indignity of having its unbeaten champion lose to a 6-6 Pac-10 team that fired its coach, was playing a fourth-string quarterback and was pinned at its own 2-yard line to begin the final drive.

Oh, yeah, one more thing the big guy saved: His coach's butt.

Afterward, Hall took the microphone and addressed the BYU faithful, asking, "Did anybody doubt at the end of the game that we would pull this out?"

The honest answer would be something like, "Heck, yes."

Bronco Mendenhall's job is far from endangered, but it would have been a long, long winter for him and his staff if UCLA had won this game by scoring only one touchdown, the result of a complete gift served up by Mendenhall's lack of supervision and offensive coordinator Robert Anae's lack of thinking.

In the long history of foolish decisions made by visitors to Las Vegas, the choice to have Hall hand the ball to Harvey Unga rather than take a knee in the last 19 seconds of the first half with the Cougars inside their 10 is nowhere near the worst. It certainly tops any of the in-game blunders made by Gary Crowton, Chick Atkinson or any other BYU coach in history, though.

Unga was stripped and fumbled, the Bruins recovered and Brandon Breazell caught a touchdown pass on the last play of the half, slicing BYU's lead to 17-13.

"I'll defend the call," Mendenhall said, admirably backing his employee, if not making a convincing case.

The rest of the game, while the Cougar offense was failing to score, the defense that Mendenhall personally coaches was charged the mistake from haunting the program indefinitely.

Five times in the second half, the Bruins drove into BYU territory. They scored three points. They were denied on critical plays by David Nixon's sack, Corby Hodgkiss' interception, Kayle Buchanan's deflection, Nixon's pressure and, ultimately, Manumaleuna's tip that was just enough to send Kai Forbath's kick spinning to the left and fluttering to the ground in the end zone.

"I couldn't think of a more fitting play to show maybe the resolve and determination of this team," Mendenhall said.

So ended a game that was more entertaining and fiercely contested than just about anyone would have figured.

The Bruins could have -- probably should have -- won this game. They covered 87 yards on the last drive, thanks mostly to Logan Paulsen's 36-yard catch that perfectly positioned Forbath for his fourth field-goal try of the game.

But the last kick never had a chance. In that moment, Manumaleuna saved Mendenhall and Anae from blowing a whole season's gains in Las Vegas.

(Contact Kurt Kragthorpe at kkragthorpe(at)sltrib.com)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)