Same Question: Why Is It Always ‘The Y’

It happens every year. Someone goes and puts those initials on San Diego State’s football schedule.

BYU.

Of course, those initials stand for Brigham Young University. However, at San Diego State, BYU is simply BYU. Up the road in Provo, the local university is known simply as the Y.

And that is what the Aztecs must so often wonder. Why?

Who is this culprit who keeps putting those initials on the schedule? It must be the kind of person who would kick golf balls into sand traps or hide Tommy Lasorda’s linguine or steal tricycles. It’s cruel.

Unfortunately for the Aztecs, they have little choice in the matter. Since both SDSU and BYU are in the Western Athletic Conference, they must have these encounters on an annual basis. BYU is as unavoidable as winter.

So those initials automatically make their appearance on the schedule, and they could not be any more ominous if they were KGB. They “pop out” at the Aztec eye as if they were somehow printed in three dimensions.

Not that the Aztecs are alone among their WAC brethren. BYU has lost exactly four WAC games since the Aztecs joined the conference in 1978. The WAC has become reminiscent of the Big Eight--Oklahoma and The Seven Dwarfs--of the 1950s. BYU has not lost a WAC game since a 39-38 loss to Air Force in 1982, the win streak now at 23 games.

In the WAC, “Dynasty” is not a prime-time soap opera but rather a Saturday afternoon nightmare. Dynasty is BYU, those initials again.

Surely, San Diego State took note quite some time ago that those dreaded initials were emblazoned next to Oct. 12 on the 1985 schedule.

That would be today, of course.

It is to the Aztecs’ credit that they somehow shoved those initials into the recesses of their minds last week, when they had a little contest with Stanford scheduled in Mission Valley. That would pair, for the first time, two of the more accomplished passing attacks in the realm of collegiate football.

Obviously, this would be a rather high-scoring affair. It was and it wasn’t. The Aztecs put together a high-scoring evening, but Stanford didn’t. The 41-22 win was one of the biggest SDSU has enjoyed.

“Our kids got after them,” Coach Doug Scovil said. “They really did. It was a big win for us.”

That is about as excitable as Scovil gets. The level of his voice never betrays his emotions, up or down, win or lose. He speaks in a monotone, and the only glimpse inside the man is through his eyes. They sparkled after that win over Stanford, because the kids had gotten after ‘em and put together a big win.

However, Scovil’s eyes turn cautious in about the time it takes BYU to gain a first down, which is no time at all. There was so little time to savor that Stanford win, because those dreaded initials were next on the schedule.

In the aftermath of Scovil’s previous four meetings with BYU as the Aztec head coach, the eyes have always had basset-hound sadness. The voice remained the same but the eyes were the eyes of a man who had just been told his house burned down.

Scovil’s first year was 1981, and the Aztecs were 4-0 when they hit BYU. There was cause for optimism, particularly since that fourth win was a 52-31 rout of Iowa State. Understand that Iowa State was also unbeaten, and coming off a 7-7 tie with Oklahoma.

On that occasion, as on so many others, the Aztecs certainly hit BYU--as if they had fallen out of an airplane. BYU was a 27-7 winner, and that was one of the closest games in the recent history of the rivalry. The scores have since been 58-8, 47-12 and 34-3.

You know how cruel the maker of the schedule can be? Do you recall this scenario?

The 1979 Aztecs were 8-2 with one game to play. Win that game and they go to the Holiday Bowl. They played that game to a sellout crowd and a national television audience, the former a rarity and the latter a first and only.

Guess who? BYU.

The final score was 63-14.

Now this is how cruel the maker of the schedule can be. He put those very same initials at the very top of the Aztecs’ 1980 schedule. The final score was 35-11.

In truth, it has never made a great deal of difference where those initials happen to be placed on the schedule. The Aztecs are off rather nicely to a 3-1 start this year, and now is the time BYU confronts them.

Will it be different this time? Will it ever be different?

The oddsmakers have made BYU a 17-point favorite, which should be encouraging to the Aztecs. After all, there have been years when they would have had a better chance at winning a $2 million lottery jackpot than beating BYU.

It would appear that Scovil, in the fifth year of his five-year plan, has put together his best team. However, he is aware that WAC teams are all measured against BYU, and is not about to make any bold proclamations--not that brashness is at all a part of his nature anyway.

Indeed, Scovil is as low-key going into today’s game as he was coming out of last Saturday’s game.

“It looks like a typical BYU team to me,” he said. “The offensive line is huge, the skilled people are excellent and the defense doesn’t give you a darned thing. It’s going to be a challenge, no doubt about it.”

The BYU game has always been a challenge for the Aztecs, but never much of a contest. Every year they have eyed this game with the apprehension of an 8-year-old looking at the peas on his plate, knowing he would eventually have to confront them but wishing maybe they would go away.

BYU will not go away. The initials will be there every year. It wouldn’t be fall without them.