… this game was in the first third of the season. Most fans, I would guess, are not aware of the context of the play. There are so many claims that the play saved the undefeated NC season. Well, at the time of that game, no one saw it that way. It is only with hindsight that you can claim a really good play early in the season is a season saving play when BYU likely wins the game anyway if Hawaii scored the TD. The majority of the 4th quarter was yet to be played.

If you poll most BYU fans here about the play, I would guess most believe the Morrell play was a goal line stand late in the 4th quarter, late in the season. None of that is true except for the goal line stand. Having said the above, no one should think that I believe it was not a great play. I think it may deserve to be in BYU’s top 10. But the reason is just the great individual action by Morrell on the play and not for any of the other untrue stuff about it single handedly saving BYU’s NC.