Last Visit to SDSU by BYU’s Cutler Resulted in Game to Forget

Football players like to talk about forgetting a loss and moving on to the next game, but few can say they have done so with the conviction of Chuck Cutler, Brigham Young’s record-setting senior wide receiver.

Ask him about the 1986 loss at San Diego State, which ended the Cougars’ 10-year streak of Western Athletic Conference championships, and he will say he doesn’t remember. Amazingly, he means it.

One week after the Aztecs defeated BYU, 10-3, to win their first WAC title, Cutler was tackled in a game against Air Force and suffered amnesia.

The memory lapse erased the previous 2 weeks of his life. To this day, Cutler said, he still cannot recall the loss to SDSU or much else that took place in the 2 weeks before the game against Air Force.

“Maybe it is just as good I forget about that game,” Cutler said jokingly in a telephone interview from Provo, Utah, this week. “Who wants to remember losing the WAC championship?”

Cutler and BYU return to San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium Saturday night for the first time since that loss to play SDSU in a game that this time is more important for the Cougars (7-1, 4-1 in WAC) than it is for the Aztecs (1-7, 1-4).

The game has a special meaning to Cutler, who hopes coming back might help jar his lost memory.

“That San Diego State game is a period that is kind of gone,” he said. “I’m curious to see if I’ll start to remember more when I get to the same hotel and the same stadium for the first time. But I’ve found that most things are gone for good.”

The problem is that the blow’s effect was indiscriminate. In wiping out the bad memories, it also wiped out the good. Lost in the fog of those 2 weeks was Cutler’s marriage proposal to his wife, Michelle, an elementary education major at BYU.

“It would be nice if I could remember,” Cutler said. “But there was nothing I could do except accept what happened and go ahead and re-propose. As it turned out, everything worked out fine.”

Michelle said “yes” the second time, just as she had the first. Only this time, there were witnesses. Cutler’s future in-laws video taped as Cutler made his second pitch in December 1986 at a family dinner.

“Knowing she had said yes before sure took a lot of the butterflies away,” Cutler said.

The couple was married in May 1987, and their first son, Dallin Charles, was born 2 weeks ago.

“It has been an adjustment with all the late nights, but there is nothing like the thrill of a child being born,” Cutler said.

His bout with amnesia and the finer points of child-rearing are but the latest medical lessons for Cutler. He is a player with extensive hospital experience.

Since 1984, Cutler has undergone 4 operations--one for a hernia and three to repair broken bones in his hands. He plays with a metal plate and 6 screws in his right hand. He faces 3 more operations after the season to remove the implants and finish repairs on the thumbs he broke against Hawaii last year.

“I guess it’s good I stopped taking piano lessons when I was young,” Cutler said with a laugh. “My hands are pretty scarred and kind of bumpy. I’m never going to do an Ivory Soap commercial, but they’re serving me all right.”

Cutler caught a career-high 10 passes for 142 yards and 2 touchdowns in a 65-0 victory over New Mexico Saturday. The scoring catches extended his streak of consecutive games with a touchdown catch to 8, tying an NCAA Division I-A single-season record set by Cincinnati’s Jim O’Brien in 1968 and equalled by 3 others. The consecutive games record is 10, set by Mike Chronister of BYU in 1976-77.

Cutler, who has 46 catches for 723 yards and 10 touchdowns, is tied for second in conference receiving with Utah’s Carl Harry, 2 catches behind the Aztec’s league leader, Monty Gilbreath.

“Hopefully, I’ll continue the streak,” Cutler said. “But really it has been nothing more than an added bonus for how the season has gone.”

The Cougars have won 7 in a row since an opening 24-14 loss at Wyoming. Their chances for their first conference title since 1985 hinge on the outcome of Wyoming’s final 2 WAC games against Texas El Paso Saturday and at Hawaii Nov. 19. The Cowboys (9-0, 6-0) must lose one of those two games for the Cougars to share in the championship.

Cutler spent the Cougars’ last title season in 1985 as a redshirted walk-on following a 2-year Mormon church mission to Ecuador.

The mission came after a successful 1982 freshman season at Snow College that first attracted BYU’s attention. Cutler had gone to Snow when, he said, he did not receive a major-college offer following his senior season Alta High School in Draper, Utah.

“Coaches told me I was too slow and not big enough,” Cutler said. “After my mission, I could have gone back to Snow on a scholarship, but I figured in the long run it would be best for me to give up the scholarship and walk on (at BYU).”

Cutler played sparingly in 1986 before earning a starting job last season, when he caught 30 passes for 444 yards and 2 touchdowns. At 24, he has grown to 6 feet 2 inches and 190 pounds, but his speed remains a source of team humor.

On a screen pass against New Mexico, he was caught from behind by John Bell, a 6-2, 240-pound nose tackle.

“He got a lot of kidding for that,” BYU Coach LaVell Edwards said. “But the guy did have a jump on him.”

Lack of speed might be one reason Cutler is not making plans for a pro career, but his troublesome hands and new family responsibility are more compelling reasons.

Cutler instead is concentrating on finding work after he graduates in the spring. With a 3.55 grade-point average in accounting and academic All-American credentials, Cutler figures to be a strong job candidate. But he also is finding his medical history helps.

He recently interviewed for a sales position with a pharmaceutical company. The interviewer found his medical chart as interesting as his resume.

“They were really impressed with my medical knowledge,” Cutler said. “I’m starting to think maybe I should just go into medicine myself.”

Aztec Notes

The right ankle inflammation that has hospitalized junior nose tackle Brad Burton has been diagnosed as a likely staph infection, trainer Don Kaverman said. No release date from Sharp Memorial Hospital has been set for Burton, but it is doubtful Burton will play anymore this season, Kaverman said. Tests on linebacker Kevin Maultsby have revealed a small rupture in a disk in his neck, Kaverman said. No decision has been reached about whether Maultsby, a senior, will return, Kaverman said. He has not played since he was injured Oct. 15 against Hawaii. Ray Rowe, a reserve tight end from Mira Mesa, has been ruled out for Saturday because of a bruised shoulder, Kaverman said. Alfred Jackson has been cleared to play wide receiver for the first time since dislocating two fingers Oct. 8 against Wyoming.