BYU Really Tys One on the Aztecs : College football: Detmer passes for 514 yards to lead No. 4 Cougars to 62-34 victory over San Diego State.

The publicity has gotten so heavy that every Wednesday, Brigham Young quarterback Ty Detmer holds his own press conference.

Then every Saturday, Detmer holds his weekly clinic.

San Diego State got this week’s lesson Saturday in front of 66,044, the fourth-largest crowd ever at Cougar Stadium. Detmer passed for 514 yards, No. 4 BYU won, 62-34, and together, these guys are going to keep the Provo calculator business hopping for a while.

BYU jumped to a 21-0 lead, SDSU came back and pulled to within 28-24 at halftime, and then BYU came out and scored on its first five possessions in the second half.

Call that a wrap.

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Ty Detmer,” SDSU Coach Al Luginbill said after his team lost its Western Athletic Conference opener. “I thought we made the adjustments we needed to make to take the people they were going to throw the ball to away. We had them there; we did not make the plays.”

“That started in the second quarter and went through the fourth quarter. That, more than anything, was the disappointing aspect of the football game.”

Aztec defenders spent the afternoon working on mysteries without any clues. BYU averaged 10 yards per play . The Cougars added 127 yards rushing, and five of their first 13 rushing plays went for touchdowns. They had 641 yards in total offense, which approached the most yards ever allowed in a game by an SDSU defense (690 against New Mexico in 1986).

Detmer’s 514 yards, on 26-for-38 passing, were the most ever against the habitually porous Aztec defense, making him the second opposing quarterback in three weeks to enter the SDSU record books. On Sept. 8, Oregon’s Bill Musgrave passed SDSU silly for 443 yards, which at the time was the third-most ever allowed by an SDSU defense.

The Aztecs (1-2) figured beforehand that the best way to stop Detmer was to play ball control and keep Detmer standing on the sidelines as much as possible. Their biggest mistake was that they couldn’t figure out a way to keep Detmer there all of the time.

Detmer made like the Invisible Man in the first half--SDSU limited BYU to just 8:46 in time of possession--and still outpassed his counterpart, SDSU’s Dan McGwire. Detmer finished the first half with 276 yards passing--and the BYU offense had the ball for a total of just 1:13 in the second quarter.

But Detmer threw two touchdown passes to Andy Boyce--51 and 17 yards--and the Cougars ran for two more.

McGwire, meanwhile, had 194 yards passing at the half. Like Detmer, he threw two touchdown passes in the half--six yards to Jimmy Raye and 29 to Patrick Rowe.

In between those, the Aztecs pulled an onside kick on which Andy Trakas popped the ball up over the BYU front and SDSU’s John Louis recovered. That led to SDSU’s second touchdown, making the score 21-14.

The Aztecs were gobbling up both yardage and time on the clock and, for a while, they climbed right back into the game.

The McGwire-to-Raye touchdown pass capped a 65-yard, 12-play drive. Then, after the Aztecs recovered the onside kick--Luginbill referred to it as a “pooch” kick--they went on a nine-play, 45-yard drive that ended when Curtis Butts scored on a one-yard run.

“This was a real gut-check for us again,” BYU Coach LaVell Edwards said. “The execution and timing on that onside kick was as good as I’d seen, and it put us back on our heels. I was proud of our defense in the third quarter.”

But when SDSU needed its defense, it disappeared. The lead was cut to a touchdown, 21-14, and here is what happened when BYU got the ball back: Starting at his own 20, Detmer passed 35 yards to tight end Chris Smith. Then he passed 28 yards to Micah Matsuzaki. Then he found Boyce open for the 17-yard touchdown pass. Eighty yards in three--count ‘em, three--plays.

But by the end of the second quarter, SDSU had scored three touchdowns and a field goal in four possessions and by halftime, the Aztecs had cut a three-touchdown deficit to four points.

“It was nuts (in the SDSU locker room) at halftime,” Rowe said. “We were all happy and pumped up. We felt like we had momentum.”

But BYU had Detmer.

He connected on just one touchdown pass in the second half, but he was impressive in all five of BYU’s touchdown drives. Tight end Chris Smith caught six of his passes for 162 yards, Boyce had seven for 143, and Matt Bellini, who moved into second place ahead of Gordon Hudson on the all-time BYU receiving list, caught nine for 119.

The Aztecs had a chance to go ahead on their first drive of the third quarter, but the BYU defense held. SDSU moved from its own 23 to the BYU 18, but the Cougars stopped SDSU, and Trakas’ 36-yard field goal attempt was wide to the left.

BYU took possession and went 80 yards in seven plays to make the score 35-24, and then the Cougars blocked a punt on SDSU’s next possession. They took over at the Aztec 1, and Bellini scored one play later. It was 41-24, and any Aztec thoughts of a comeback were quickly extinguished.

“I was stunned on that blocked punt,” Luginbill said. “They didn’t even have a rush on. We just blew an assignment.”

The Aztec defense was at its best in the first quarter, when it forced BYU to punt on each of its first two possessions, but penalties--a recurring nemesis--turned field position over to BYU.

The Aztecs were called for pass interference on BYU’s first play from scrimmage. On SDSU’s second play from scrimmage, the Aztecs were called for motion. On BYU’s next possession, Raye returned a Cougar punt 29 yards to the SDSU 47, but a clipping penalty brought the ball back to the SDSU 11.

“At first, I thought we were going to go show what we could do,” SDSU receiver Dennis Arey said. “But when the penalties started happening, I was like, ‘Uh-oh, I think some guys are nervous.’ ”

SDSU finished with 10 penalties for 79 yards. The Aztecs have now been called for 31 penalties in three games.

And with Detmer on the other side of the line of scrimmage, the last thing the Aztecs needed was to be giving BYU extra yardage.

Twice in the first half, BYU went 80 yards or more in just three plays. They traveled 87 yards in just three plays for their second touchdown, the big play being the 51-yard touchdown pass from Detmer to Boyce. Then, in the second quarter, they displayed their three-and-out offense, going 80 yards in three plays. “We weren’t clicking off the bat, but we got it clicking soon,” Detmer said. “Our receivers did a great job adjusting to the ball. They tried to play man with our receivers and we beat them all day. . . . We scored so quick, it kind of hurts the defense.”

McGwire finished with 32 completions in 59 attempts for 362 yards and three touchdowns. Arey caught 11 passes for 133 yards, and Rowe caught six for 116.

But in the end, it wasn’t enough.

“We didn’t execute every time we had the ball,” McGwire said. “We knew going in we would have to.”

Saturday, they saw why. His name is Ty.