Arizona takes down BYU in Las Vegas bowl

For west coast college football fans it seems like only yesterday that the Arizona Wildcats and their vaunted “Desert Swarm” defense was arguably the most dominant in their land.  In reality, it might as well be eons ago—for the past decade Arizona football has struggled somewhere between bad and mediocre looking for an inevitable light at the end of the tunnel.  They may have found it in America’s “City of Light”—Las Vegas, Nevada.  In any case, after ten years without a bowl victory or a winning season they’ll definitely take this year’s 8-5 mark and 31-21 win over #16 BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl.

BYU has played in the Las Vegas Bowl for the past four years, and superficially it seems like a strange fit for the Mormon Church owned college to make their second home in the capital of gambling, hedonism and vice.  In reality, the Mormon Church has been coming to the area—though not necessarily for football bowl games—for well over 100 years.  John Fremont may have been the first to explore the area (which is why the main street running through the downtown “Glitter Gulch” casino district is named after him), but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons’ ‘official name’) wasn’t far behind.  In 1855, Brigham Young sent a delegation of 30 missionaries to the area in hopes of converting the Piute Indians to Mormonism.  They didn’t experience overwhelming success, and due to hostility from the locals and the inhospitable conditions in the days before air conditioning and swimming pools they abandoned Las Vegas just a couple of years later.

For the Mormons, “leaving Las Vegas” was only temporary and the 151 years since has seen a thriving LDS presence grow in Southern Nevada.  There’s a surprising number of Mormons working in the casino industry—a trend that predated Howard Hughes’ well known insistence that all of his high level executives be faithful Mormons (his inner circle earned the nickname “the Mormon Mafia”).  For that reason, as well as the city’s proximity to the other major Mormon population centers in California and Utah, the Las Vegas Bowl is actually a perfect fit for BYU’s postseason plans.

Or at least it is *off* the field—on the field the Cougars have struggled in recent bowl games.  The loss to Arizona was their fifth in their last seven bowl appearances overall and dropped their Las Vegas Bowl record to 2-2.  The loss dropped BYU to 10-3 for the 2008 season—that may look pretty good but with the school’s two biggest recruiting “competitors” going undefeated (Boise State and Utah) it’s just not good enough, as Cougar head coach Bronco Mendenhall observed:

"Ten and three is a solid season, but the standards here are much higher. Our standards here are to win the conference championship and be on the national stage."

For Arizona, meanwhile, it was hopefully the start of a new dawn for the program.  Their offense was led by senior QB Willie Tuitama who outplayed his highly regarded BYU counterpart Max Hall.  Tuitama passed for 325 yards and two TDs and Wildcats coach Mike Stoops was effusive in his postgame praise for the QB:

“Nobody has endured more -- well, maybe me -- in the last four years. "He'll go down in history at Arizona. His legacy is forever etched”

Tuitama and the offense got a lot of help from the other side of the ball—while the defense may be far from the “Desert Swarm” level of dominance they did mount a solid pass rush that caused fits for BYU’s Hall all day.  Hall was always under pressure and being forced to scramble, leading to two lost fumbles, an interception and two sacks along with numerous rushed passes.    After the game, Hall shared his coach’s frustration with their effort and the overall tenor of the season:

"It was a good season, but not a great season. We just hit a lull as a team."

The victorious Tuitama, meanwhile, deflected much of the personal credit and emphasized the team effort:

"We had a goal before the season started and tonight we finally reached it. I'll never forget to finally be in a bowl game with this group of seniors, on this team."

The University of Arizona and its backers are hoping that this is the beginning of an era of success for the Wildcats and that they won’t have to wait another decade to celebrate a bowl victory.