Dampier Accounted for Every Utah Touchdown, Then the Fans Took the Field

The Holy War has been played, on and off, for more than a century. It had never been played at this altitude — No. 3 Utah against No. 9 BYU, both teams carrying playoff stakes into November, at a Rice-Eccles Stadium that kicked off at 10 in the morning and spent its last minute emptying onto the field. Utah won it 28–20, per ESPN’s game summary, and the win ran through exactly one pair of hands.

Devon Dampier had a hand in all four Utah touchdowns: two touchdown passes, two touchdown runs, and — because the afternoon apparently had a sense of humor — a 29-yard reception, caught by the quarterback himself, on fourth down. Add the lines up and the senior threw for 177 yards, ran for 87, and was the offense.

Fourteen points before BYU woke up

Utah’s first two drives took seven plays. Dampier ran 22 yards for a touchdown on the opening series, then found Braden Pegan behind the defense for a 46-yard score — 14–0 barely five minutes in. Then BYU scored 20 straight. Matthias Dunn kicked two field goals, Bear Bachmeier hit Legend Glasker for a 75-yard touchdown, and LJ Martin’s 4-yard run sent the Cougars into halftime up 20–14. Bachmeier threw for 272 yards on the day, and for two quarters the No. 9 team in the country was beating the No. 3 team in its own building.

The quarterback caught the turning point

Utah’s season turned on a fourth-and-1 at its own 49 in the third quarter. The Utes sent their quarterback out as a receiver, and Dampier went up over BYU safety Raider Damuni for a leaping 29-yard catch that kept the drive alive — the play the Associated Press’s account of the afternoon singles out, and the one that swung the game back. Later in the quarter Dampier hit Pegan again, from 14 yards, and Utah led 21–20. Twelve minutes into the fourth, he finished the job himself, running in his second touchdown from the 3: 28–20, and the only question left was whether BYU had one more drive in it.

The two quarterbacks, side by side, tell the whole story. Bachmeier out-threw Dampier, 272 yards to 177, and produced the day’s longest play. He also threw four interceptions — Utah’s defense took the ball away from him four times, including a Trey Reynolds interception at the Utah 2 with 4:39 left, with BYU one snap from tying the game. Dampier threw none. In a one-score rivalry game, that was the margin.

Zeroes on the clock, thousands on the field

BYU got one last possession — its own 48, 54 seconds, no timeouts. It ended the way ESPN’s official clip of the finish shows it: Nate Ritchie came down with Bachmeier’s fourth interception, head coach Morgan Scalley got his postgame moment, and the crowd came over the walls. USA Today’s account records that the storm started the second the clock hit triple zero, with the scoreboard frozen at 28, 0:00, 20 — the same board you can read over the crowd’s shoulders in the photograph below.

The Big 12 reviews field storms case by case, and USA Today notes the standard fine starts at $50,000. That is a Monday problem. On Saturday, 9–0 was the only number in the building anybody cared about.

Utah is 9–0 and 6–0 in the Big 12, and the road does not soften — the Utes travel to No. 22 Arizona next Saturday. A rivalry this old is not supposed to produce a program’s biggest modern afternoon. Utah got one anyway: its quarterback did everything, its defense took the ball away four times, and its crowd finished the game standing on the field. The Big 12 race runs through Salt Lake City.

Full linescore and play-by-play: Game Center — BYU at Utah. More: College Football hub · Stats Hub