Ups and Downs Fail to Put BYU’s Detmer on Sideline : Football: Quarterback has endured several hardships and severe media scrutiny. Through all this, his teams have won.

It was right after he won the Heisman Trophy last year that Ty Detmer’s halo began to fade.

In his first game as the Heisman bearer, Detmer and were swamped in Hawaii, 59-28.

Then the Cougars were embarrassed in the Holiday Bowl by Texas A&M;, 65-14, and Detmer was nearly buried in the sod of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium by a vicious pass rush. He was knocked from the game with two separated shoulders and a badly bruised image.

And the worst was yet to come. The grandfather in whose house the Heisman Trophy sat died from cancer after a long illness in March.

After the school year, Detmer married his BYU sweetheart, Kim Herbert, and became a Mormon. Then he was guest of honor at a Fourth of July parade near his hometown of San Antonio. While on honeymoon in Hawaii was told he was under investigation by the NCAA because his expenses to the parade had been paid.

Just before his senior season began, Detmer’s mother, Betty, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a mastectomy and is undergoing chemotherapy now.

“It seems I was always going off to some awards banquet, then coming back and finding out something bad had happened,” Detmer said.

Then the season began with three losses. The wags pointed out Detmer hadn’t won anything since the Heisman.

The golden boy had tarnished. His halo was being bent, spindled and mutilated by big nasty linemen.

There was just one thing: You can’t keep Ty Detmer down. After the Heisman buildup and all the subsequent letdowns, Detmer found the football field and the competition his place to escape and relax.

And after losing the first three games this year, Detmer didn’t even have to worry about the media. “Nobody wants to talk to you when you’re 0-3,” Detmer said with a grin. After his hectic junior year, that was fine with him.

“Last year there were a lot more people looking for faults. This year I just went out and played,” he said. “This was the funnest year I’ve had here.”

Instead of getting him down, Detmer says the hard times made him appreciate his time on the field more, and to put last year’s disappointing ending behind. “We might be looking for (redemption) a little bit,” he said. “This is my third Holiday Bowl and it would be nice to win, but last year is last year. We’ve had 12 games since then.”

Though the nation had tuned him out, Detmer quietly went about having a fine season, coaxing the inexperienced offense and a new set of receivers, throwing for 4,031 yards and 35 touchdowns and cutting his interceptions from 28 last year to 12.

With the spotlight off, Detmer and BYU was 8-0-1 record in the Western Athletic Conference over the last nine games. And when the lights went back on for the Cougars’ televised WAC title showdown against San Diego State, Detmer passed for 599 yards and produced 35 points in the second half on the way to a 52-52 tie.

By season’s end, Detmer’s name frequented the NCAA record book--he surpassed the career yardage mark by nearly 4,000 and passed for 121 touchdowns, 37 more than the previous record-holder, Jim McMahon. He had 13 games passing for 400 or more yards. Detmer repeated on most All-American first teams, though he was a distant third in the Heisman vote behind Michigan receiver Desmond Howard.

And not evident in the mind-boggling statistics were Detmer’s feel for the game, his ability to find the third and fourth options on pass plays, his knack for avoiding sacks at the last possible moment--his combativeness.

BYU Coach LaVell Edwards likens his team’s story line this season to Detmer’s. “People really wrote him off. It’s been one of the great comebacks. He just will not go away,” Edwards said.

“I didn’t feel like I was ever playing bad, even those first three games,” Detmer said. “This year I was kind of like a coach on the field, trying to keep ‘em going where they were supposed to go, keep them concentrating. I haven’t been one to talk much (to the players) but this year I had to and I learned from that. I matured.”

If anything, Edwards is more impressed with Detmer this year. “The guy is unbelievable,” he said. “He separates both shoulders, and he handled (the media) with the same grace as when he won the Heisman. Ty is most remarkable guy I’ve ever been around.”

Detmer came out of suburban San Antonio, the hot-shot son of a high school coach and BYU’s most heralded recruit in a long line of star quarterbacks.

The naysayers said Detmer--listed now at 6 feet and a beefed up 185 pounds--was too small, that he was destined to be the next Doug Flutie, the diminutive Heisman winner at Boston College who never cut it in the National Football League.

NFL scouts still question his pro prospects, but Detmer isn’t worrying about it.

“Yeah, I wasn’t big enough to play college ball, either,” Detmer says with a laugh. “I’ve met Flutie, and he comes up to my eyebrows. So I don’t know where the comparison comes in. They just put so much emphasis on the (NFL scouting) combine and individual stuff, but it’s a team game, and that’s my strength.”

Said Edwards: “He’s as tough a competitor as you’re ever going to find. The only game he’s ever been knocked out of was against A&M--and; it took two separated shoulders.”

Indeed, against San Diego State, Detmer suffered a forehead gash that required 20 stitches early in the first half. He never missed a down. He now sports a bright pink scar over his left eyebrow that might indefinitely mar his choirboy appearance.

His reaction: “I looked at it at halftime and said it’s a good thing I got married this summer.”

Though polite and reticent with the press, Detmer is known as the team prankster and one of the guys who keeps things loose. But on the field teammates say his grit is immeasurable.

Sophomore receiver Eric Drage said, “Everyone sees he can take a hit but I don’t think people realize how tough he is. You just can’t keep him off the field.”

Running back Peter Tuipulotu, a senior, said, “I was surprised all that (criticism) happened to Ty. I can’t see where those negative parts are at. He’s just a winner. He goes out there to win. Off the field he’s a gentleman. What more can you ask?”

Edwards could ask that Detmer stick around longer, but that’s another one the NCAA would frown on. Besides, it’s time for Detmer, 23, to move on and keep hurdling obstacles, proving people wrong.

“When he leaves I may have to leave, too,” Edwards said.

Holiday Bowl Quarterbacks

Name, School G/GS Att Cmp Pct Int Yds Yds/G TDs Matt Rodgers, Iowa 9/9 255 166 .651 10 2054 228.2 14 Jim Hartlieb, Iowa 9/2 54 29 .537 2 389 43.2 4 Ty Detmer, Brigham Young 12/12 403 249 .618 12 4031 335.9 35