...the same Saturday. I remember going to bed that Friday night thinking we were favored in 2 of the events so surely we'd come away with at least one National Championship. It was men's rugby, men's volleyball and women's rugby. We were favored in the men's events and I remember thinking there's no way we lose all 3....but....this is BYU and that would be a totally BYU thing to do, lose all 3.

Sure enough, in the rugby championship I think it was Cal we went up against and they ran some kind of gimmicky attack that slowed things down and negated our athletic advantage and we played right into it. They kept it a low scoring event and it took us out of our game and we started pressing and making mistakes and lost.

Men's volleyball we got smoked by Ohio St and couldn't return a serve and played like dunderheads, fell apart and let them sweep us 3-0.

iirc the women's rugby team were kind of new/young and were doing great just to get that far and so when they lost it wasn't anything unexpected.

So I think it's totally a culture thing at BYU of mentally shrinking/melting in the big moment