Detmer’s Numbers Are Still Growing : Brigham Young: Heisman candidate passes for 560 yards, breaks Ware’s NCAA record for yardage in a season in 45-10 win over Utah State.

Ty Detmer looked at Brigham Young’s 45-10 victory over Utah State as another step in a championship season and not a personal showcase for his Heisman Trophy aspirations.

“If we hadn’t impressed them before today, they weren’t going to be impressed,” Detmer said. “We’ve put up the numbers. We’ve done the things we’ve had to do.”

BYU Coach LaVell Edwards thinks the trophy should go to his quarterback.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have a vote,” Edwards said. “He just does everything. I can’t say enough about the guy.”

Detmer, who last week became the first junior to exceed 10,000 passing yards, threw for 560 yards and five touchdowns. He also established an NCAA record of 4,869 passing yards, breaking the mark of 4,699 set last year by Houston’s Andre Ware.

By hitting 32 of 50 passes on Saturday, Detmer increased his season completion total to 339, 26 shy of Ware’s record. Detmer, who has one game remaining, has thrown 527 passes, 61 fewer than Ware threw a year ago.

Detmer increased to 23 in a row his NCAA-record streak of games with 300 or more passing yards.

The junior’s last chance to impress Heisman Trophy voters was marred by five interceptions.

Detmer, who also had five passes intercepted in BYU’s 32-16 loss at Oregon, admitted he has “a tendency to throw into coverage. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

“We had a little bit of everything. There was a mixup, one bad read, one bad throw, and a guy made a great play,” Detmer said.

Utah State (5-5-1) of the Big West Conference stayed with the Western Athletic Conference champions (10-1) for one quarter, thanks in large part to three turnovers by Detmer. He lost a fumble and had two passes picked off by Ron Edwards.

Doug Beach’s 18-yard field goal gave the Aggies a 3-0 lead heading into the second quarter, when Detmer got the offense going.

Detmer threw touchdown passes of 35 yards to Eric Drage, 10 yards to Scott Charlton and six yards to Brent Nyberg, and Earl Kauffman kicked a 28-yard field goal as the Cougars built a 24-7 lead.

The Aggies could answer only with Ron Lopez’s eight-yard touchdown pass to Tracey Jenkins, and trailed, 24-10, at halftime.

BYU pushed the lead to 31-10 in the third quarter when safety Josh Arnold returned an interception 31 yards for a touchdown.

Detmer made it 38-10 on a 53-yard pass play to Micah Matsuzaki. Six seconds into the fourth quarter, he threw 13 yards to Chris Smith for a 45-10 lead.

Lopez completed 21 of 44 passes for 269 yards, but he also had five passes intercepted.