BYU has had a season filled with storylines of its own. Questions like, will the independent Cougars jump to the Big 12? The Big East? Will Jake Heaps stay or will he go?
So when things calm down just a tad, and all the questions have been answered, pardon the Cougar faithful for feeling a bit relieved.
Once BYU got word that its opponent would be Tulsa in the Armed Forces Bowl, things frankly didn’t seem as daunting.
Friday, Dec. 30BYU (9-3) vs. Tulsa (8-4)Bell Helicopter Armed Forces BowlFord Stadium, Dallas10 a.m. MSTESPN
After all, the Cougars have never dealt with what Tulsa senior quarterback G.J. Kinne went through.
On the morning of April 7, 2005 at a high school in Canton, Texas, a suburb 60 miles north of Dallas a lone man walked into the football office where Kinne’s dad Gary -- also the head coach -- was doing his usual routine of watching game film from the past season.
Nobody knows what was said between the man who walked into the office -- and Gary. But police reports state that the man simply walked into the office and shot Gary one time, in the stomach, without saying a word.
Later that day police told G.J. that his father died. Miraculously, his father survived, spending over three months in the hospital, while undergoing numerous surgeries to repair the damage.
After Gary’s dad had recovered from his gunshot wound it was determined by local police that the man who walked into the football office was in fact a father of one of the players.
The man, Jeff Robertson also of Canton, was reportedly angry that his son was passed over for the starting quarterback job in favor of the much younger G.J., who was just a freshman at the time. Robertson was handed a 20-year prison sentence for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
The story was a subject of a recent ESPN documentary. Kinne played three years at Canton and moved on to Gilmer High School for his senior year.
While the Cougars have been on ESPN numerous times this season nobody in the BYU football program has ever had to deal with what G.J. has had to handle.
But Kinne is doing just fine now, thanks, throwing for over 2,800 yards with 25 touchdowns against just 12 interceptions and turning his life over to God to help him through the 2005 ordeal, his parents divorce and life itself.
Kinne played in all 12 games for the Golden Hurricane and the fifth-year senior rushed for over 400 yards on the season. But Kinne is not Tulsa’s only weapon on offense.
Along with a bevy of wide receivers including Willie Carter and Bryan Burnham the team also boasts Ja’Terian Douglas and Clay Watts, running backs who each ran for over 800 yards and combined for seven touchdowns.
Tulsa’s balanced offense could cause BYU’s defense fits in Dallas.
But the good news is that the Cougar offense -- which is now in sync under Riley Nelson, who has recovered from his lung collapse and played his best game of the season at Hawaii -- is resurgent at the right time.
After lollygagging through several meaningless games against lesser opposition like Idaho and New Mexico State with the now-departed Jake Heaps under center Nelson has a firm grasp of the offense and what it can do.
So much was apparent against the Warriors at Aloha Stadium where Nelson kicked off his 2012 Heisman Trophy campaign with a 372-yard passing performance in a hostile environment.
Tulsa’s secondary has been susceptible -- unlike BYU’s -- to big plays all season long in the passing game. In its four losses the Golden Hurricane gave up over 400 yards passing on average.
However, Tulsa employed a stingy defense in its eight wins, so one of the two will show up on Friday Dec. 30 -- the one that coughed up gobs of yards en route to a blowout loss, or the one that allowed an average of just 16 points per game in its mostly unanimous victories.
The difference in this game, however, could come down to the turnover battle. Though it’s overused in terms of determining which team is better, BYU did commit 25 turnovers this season compared to Tulsa’s 26.
The determining factor here is that both teams committed most of their turnovers in the games they lost.
So it seems that whichever team can have its defense make some plays will come out the winner.
At any rate, it will be exciting to watch two teams with resurgent quarterbacks who defied the odds -- and made their dreams come true beyond the gridiron.
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