With the Cougar offense driving late in the first half, Max Hall completed a third-down pass to Joe Dale, who was running free through the middle of the field. The only problem is Dale plays for Utah.

Three plays later, Utah quarterback Brian Johnson connected with David Reed on a 32-yard touchdown with 15 seconds left in the half. Instead of going into halftime with the score tied, or a possible lead, the Cougars trailed 27-17.

"It was a crazy turn of events," receiver Austin Collie said. "We were driving and thought we were going to score, then all of the sudden we were down by 10 points. We were still confident and had plenty of chances - we just couldn't take advantage of any of them."

The Cougars showed signs of life in the second half, as Hall scrambled for an 11-yard touchdown to make the score 27-24 midway through the third quarter. After a defensive stop, the offense got the ball back with another chance to take the lead.

From that point on, however, any hope BYU had of winning spiraled into a grotesque crash landing.

Hall threw his second interception of the game - a replay-approved sideline pick by Utah's Robert Johnson - late in the third quarter, then proceeded to fumble and throw two more interceptions on the next three Cougar drives. His turnovers led to 21 unanswered points by the Utes.

On the day, Hall completed only 21 of his 41 pass attempts for 205 yards and zero touchdowns. He had five interceptions and one fumble, and six of his passes were tipped or knocked down at the line of scrimmage. He even picked up his second personal foul penalty of the year.

"I take a lot of the responsibility," Hall said. "The team played hard, but things just didn't go well tonight. I made some mistakes that I wish I could have back, and that's disappointing. Luckily for me, I have another shot at these guys next year, and I'm looking forward to it."

Hall has played well enough this year to be considered a semifinalist for the prestigious Davey O'Brien Award, but has somehow failed to show up for BYU's most important games. In the Cougars' two losses this year - against Utah and TCU - Hall completed barely half of his passes, throwing a combined seven interceptions and no touchdowns.

That said, his teammates were reluctant to place the blame squarely on their signal-caller's shoulders.

"Defensively, we take some of the blame," linebacker David Nixon said. "We didn't create any turnovers, so we didn't do our part. Nobody is putting all the blame on Max. We could have stopped some of their drives and done a better job on defense. It's a team effort, win or lose."

In getting outscored 48-24, BYU seemed to replace its usual "Cover 2" defense with a new wrinkle, the "Cover Nobody." Johnson picked apart the Cougars' patchwork secondary, completing 30-of-36 passes for 303 yards and four touchdowns.

Unlike Hall, Johnson did not throw any interceptions or cough up a single fumble. He was efficient in leading his team to a blowout victory over the wildly-inconsistent Cougars.

Despite the lopsided score, BYU ended up with more total yards on offense than Utah, 419 yards to 415. In the end, though, the offense just couldn't take care of the football.

"Our offense did move the ball effectively, but just self-destructed and made turnovers at critical times," coach Bronco Mendenhall said. "That changed the game."



Copyright Brigham Young University 24 Nov 2008