The play happened so quickly that even Jay Monson and Steve Young (I think those were the two calling the game) didn’t really give it much discussion. It was sort of a ‘wow, nice play by Morrell… he timed his jump just right and looks to have slowed the RB momentum a little to help keep him out of the EZ’. Then nothing more was said about it as the game went on.

The feeling when Hawaii was on the doorstep was one of accepting BYU would be losing shortly due to either a Hawaii FG or a Hawaii TD. A TD was sort of expected and if it had happened BYU still had most of the 4th Q to score and retake the lead. After BYU stopped Hawaii at the goal line with a great push by the DL/LBs and with Morrell helping slow up the RB a bit, Hawaii had to settle for the lead with just a FG.

When Hawaii had to kick the FG the general feeling by BYU fans, as far as I can and could tell, was ‘cool, they held them to a FG. We are losing so we still need to score but now we can retake the lead with a FG rather than having to get a TD’. In other words, the sentiment was the same as it normally is for fans or a team when they get a good goal line stop and force a FG rather than give up a TD. Had Hawaii scored a TD, BYU and its fans would have simply said, ok, now let’s go down and score a TD and retake the lead.

As it was, after Hawaii took the lead, BYU promptly went down the field in like 4 plays and scored a TD. Most people that romanticize the importance of the Morrell play don’t even realize there was still a good chunk of the game left to play and it was still BYU’s game to win or lose. Most of those people sort of imply that had Hawaii gotten into the Endzone there, BYU would have been so emotionally crushed and mentally weak from going down by 5 points that the game was over. That is totally untrue. BYU likely marches down the field the same way they did on the next series like a knife through hot butter to score a TD and retake the lead if Hawaii had scored a TD rather than their FG. And that is the truth about the situation.