Detmer Has the Big Numbers but Can’t Revive the Success

Call it The Dan Fouts Factor.

Put a quarterback into San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, and it was like putting an artist into Montmartre. The next thing you knew, he’d put together a game to hang in the Louvre.

Every quarterback who took the field at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium had an “S” under his jersey. They came out of telephone booths rather than locker rooms.

Fouts, the master, would pass for 300 yards before he broke into a sweat. When he really got warmed up, he would pass for 400. The National Football League sent air traffic controllers rather than referees to Charger games.

And it was not just Fouts. The guys in the other uniforms would crank it up pretty good in Mission Valley, though everyone mistakenly blamed the phenomenon on faulty Charger defenses.

We know better.

It was The Fouts Factor all along.

Appropriately, when the Holiday Bowl came along, it became a quarterback’s game. No one else needed show up, except for a few caddies to catch the passes and a half-dozen statisticians to keep tabs on the mileage. Running backs were used like pit stops, taking up a few seconds here and there while the caddies refueled to chase the quarterback’s passes.

Of course, the presence of Brigham Young University--only for the first seven Holiday Bowls--had a lot to do with quarterbacks dominating this game. No aspiring quarterback need apply in Provo if he cannot stand at the 50-yard-line and throw the ball over the Wasatch Mountains.

What these guys did was take up where Fouts left off late each December. They turned the Holiday Bowl into college football’s version of Fouts vs. Montana, meaning the over-and-under had to be somewhere around 80. You couldn’t go to the rest room without missing a touchdown.

Marc Wilson threw for 380 yards.

Jim McMahon threw for 446 yards one year and 342 yards the next.

Steve Young threw for 319 yards in 1983 . . . and caught the winning touchdown pass in a 21-17 BYU victory over Missouri. (You see, anyone can throw in Mission Valley, even running backs.)

Robbie Bosco threw for 343 yards as BYU beat Michigan, 24-17, in 1984 to win the national championship.

That was BYU’s last appearance, but San Diego State’s Todd Santos passed for 298 yards in 1986, and Wyoming’s Craig Burnett passed for 332 in 1987.

We all know what happened early in 1988. Dan Fouts retired. What he did was take his mystique with him. Whatever it was that made quarterbacks invincible in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium seemingly went with him. Quarterbacks would probably love it in Rancho Santa Fe, where Fouts lives, but not too many football games are played there.

Charger quarterbacks have not had much luck passing, nor has the opposition. Everyone now credits an improved Charger defense with slowing the other guys down, but we know defense has nothing to do with it.

And you know what happened in the 1988 Holiday Bowl. The quarterbacks may as well have been in Rancho Santa Fe as far as Barry Sanders was concerned. He carried 29 times for 222 yards and five touchdowns as Oklahoma State pummeled Wyoming, 62-14.

Thus, we got to the 1989 Holiday Bowl and the question of whether or not a quarterback, namely BYU’s Ty Detmer, could thrive where so many others had struggled since Fouts retired their shared mystique. This question was magnified by the presence of Penn State’s Blair Thomas, a running back capable of dominating the game as Sanders had.

What happened was probably what BYU feared most. Detmer blew away the ghosts of all those quarterbacks who had died before him, but the night and game belonged to Thomas and Penn State. It was a matter of a quarterback finding success but not happiness.

Detmer’s numbers were definitely Foutsian. He completed 42 of 59 passes for 576 yards. But he got a clue that maybe it wasn’t going to be his night when he passed for 76 yards on the opening drive but couldn’t even get the ball into field-goal range because of penalties. One wiped out a 46-yard pass for what would have been a touchdown.

Indeed, Detmer was so dangerous that Penn State could hardly be comfortable even when it led by 15 with 9:28 to play, and its discomfort was certainly justified. This quarterback was the stuff of which nightmares are made.

But you know how cruel this stadium has been to quarterbacks lately. For all of Detmer’s heroics, rallying BYU within two points at 41-39, the nightmares will be his.

Going for the two-point conversion, Detmer’s pass was intercepted by Andre Collins and carried 102 yards for two points for Penn State. On BYU’s next possession, with the Cougars moving again toward what would be a miraculous victory, the ball was stolen from Detmer and carried 53 yards for a touchdown by Gary Brown.

Penn State had survived, winning an incredibly close 50-39 game.

Once again, the fates had thus been kinder to the running back. Of course, Thomas did much to control fate with his 35 rushes for 186 yards.

This morning, though, Blair Thomas should pinch himself when he wakes up and thank heaven he didn’t grow up to be a quarterback.