Idaho State's second championship in Big Sky Conference football history was nearly two decades in the making. The Bengals' 1981 title ultimately resulted from two kicks – one wide right, one right down the middle.
Case deBruijn's 32-yard field goal in the third overtime delivered ISU's 33-30 victory over Weber State, giving the Bengals the Big Sky trophy and launching them into the Division I-AA playoffs. The dramatic ending and the prize that came with it earned that game a semifinal berth in the Holt Moments All-Time Tournament, as ISU celebrates the 50-year anniversary of Holt Arena.
The buildup to that moment made it even better, though. There's a sports theory that the best wins come in games that seemingly were lost, and that certainly applies to Nov. 21, 1981.
Weber State could have ended the game in the second overtime, if Roger Ruzek had hit a 32-yard field goal attempt of his own, but he missed badly.
Otherwise, the Bengals forever may have lamented a night when they gave up a kickoff-return touchdown and star quarterback Mike Machurek threw five interceptions, enabling the Wildcats to stay close. The ISU fans among the crowd of 13,444 (the biggest gathering of the '81 season, by nearly 1,500) had come to witness a coronation, but had to agonize more than they ever imagined.
The unanswered part of the story is exactly what the Bengals would have lost in the process. It is altogether possible they could have finished in a three-way tie for second place in the Big Sky and still won the national championship, judging by the way they blitzed three playoff opponents. A comparison of each team's credentials suggests ISU would have remained more deserving of an at-large playoff bid than WSU, even with a head-to-head loss. But who knows? The version of the story told to this day by Glenn Alford, ISU's longtime sports information director, is that the Wildcats likely would have been picked over Bengals.
In his game story for the Idaho State Journal of Pocatello, sports editor George Greer wrote that an ISU loss would have "severely hurt its chances of being selected to the eight-team playoffs."
More on that subject in a moment. What's unquestioned, looking back, is that anyone associated with the Bengals was feeling horrible as Ruzek trotted onto the field.
Immediately after Machurek's pass bounced off the hands of wide-open running back Dwain Wilson in the middle of the field and into the arms of WSU linebacker Mike Nichter on the first play of the second OT, the realization hit home. In an era when overtime possessions began at the 15-yard line, all the Wildcats would have to do is line up and kick a short field goal to win the Big Sky's first-ever OT game.
Nearly 40 years later, former ISU coach Dave Kragthorpe relives that sequence of events by watching a highlight program of the '81 season and marvels, "We were lucky … that's all there is to it."
That analysis is based partly on what Ruzek already had done that night and what he would go on to do in pro football, kicking for 14 years in the NFL and other leagues. No reasonable explanation exists for why he could make a 51-yard field goal to tie the game (23-23) with 11 seconds remaining in regulation, yet not even come close to making the 32-yarder,
In the end, the additional drama only added to the legend of the '81 Bengals. Supposing Ruzek had missed the 51-yarder, ISU would have ended the game with a kneel-down play and escaped with a 23-20 win. Instead, the crazy finish played its way further into the lore of that season.
As Machurek says, while acknowledging his most difficult night of the year, "We all had fun when it was over."
Ruzek's second-OT miss removed any possibility of Machurek's phenomenal, two-year ISU tenure ending with an interception. To start the third overtime, the Wildcats were pushed back on their three plays and Ruzek missed a 44-yard attempt, wide left. That set up deBruijn for a title-winning kick.
"Our guy wasn't going to miss something like that," Machurek says.
On a night when ISU retired his No. 3 jersey (and Machurek's No. 19), deBruijn kicked three field goals in regulation and eventually gave his team a 33-30, 3OT win. Adding to the "3" theme, some accounts suggest the winning kick came from 33 yards out, although replays show holder Dirk Koetter kneeling at the 22-yard line.
In any case, the timing of the ceremony honoring Machurek and deBruijn could have jinxed ISU's championship opportunity. As Kragthorpe joked that week to a Bengal Foundation luncheon audience, retiring the numbers of active players seemed "kind of unusual, because they usually wait until you're dead."
Machurek remembers feeling distracted in his preparation for Weber State, not necessarily because of the jersey retirement, but by other obligations with his family having come from southern California. "Just a lot of things going on, besides the game," he says.
The Bengals were coming off an emotional, 50-24 pounding of Utah State, the only Division I-A opponent on their '81 schedule, with Machurek throwing five touchdown passes. Weber State, which had lost 31-18 to USU in September, would offer a much tougher challenge.
Mike Price, then in his first year as the Wildcats' coach, is remembered in college football mainly for his innovative offenses and trick plays. He also had a knack for discovering coaching talent. His defensive coordinator was Dave Campo, who would become an outstanding NFL assistant coach and then the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. The staff also included Mike Zimmer, who was on his way to becoming a renowned NFL defensive coordinator and is now the Minnesota Vikings' head coach.
WSU's defense had keyed a 7-6 upset of then-No. 9 Montana the previous week, and the Wildcat coaches devised a scheme that rattled Machurek. They often dropped eight defenders into pass coverage and used double-teaming combinations in the secondary. "First time I'd ever seen it," says Machurek, crediting Weber State with "the best defensive job against us that year."
The interceptions aside, Machurek still completed 20 of 38 passes for 312 yards and one touchdown. ISU's biggest shortcoming against the drop-eight scheme, was not being able to run more effectively, Kragthorpe says. The Bengals' 37 running plays netted only 80 yards.
The Bengal defense played solidly, though, with three takeaways of its own. The offense's 23 points would have been sufficient in regulation, if not for ISU's allowing a kickoff-return touchdown for the second week in a row and Ruzek's making the 51-yard field goal, his longest of the season.
So what would have happened if Ruzek hit the 32-yarder in the second OT? In a weird way, an ISU loss would have validated the 1980 decision of Kragthorpe and athletic director Babe Caccia to vote unsuccessfully against the Big Sky's adoption of the overtime rule for conference games (they believed the method was unfair to a passing-oriented team, with a shortened field; the NCAA's system now has offenses take possession at the 25-yard line, instead of the 15).
If the game had ended in a tie, with no OT provision, ISU would have finished solo second in the Big Sky at 5-1-1, behind 6-1 Boise State. In that hypothetical case, the Bengals certainly would have received an at-large playoff bid.
If Weber State had won in OT, though, the Wildcats may have convinced the I-AA committee they were the Big Sky's second-best team, based on wins over Montana and ISU. As Price said in the buildup to the game, "If we win, we have a chance to go on. If we lose, I think Idaho State will win the national championship."
The second part of that statement proved true, as we know. With a No. 2 ranking prior to facing WSU, the Bengals would have had to fall a long way in the committee's view to be excluded – even with only two at-large berths available (those ended up going to No. 4 seed Boise State and No. 7 Delaware). WSU would have finished 8-3 with three undistinguished nonconference wins and losses to USU, Boise State and Nevada, all by two touchdowns. ISU would have been 8-2 with wins over all three teams that beat Weber State, with its only other loss coming on a late field goal at Montana, where Machurek was sidelined by illness.
Kragthorpe, then and now, believes the Bengals would have received a playoff berth, regardless of losing to Weber State. And he's convinced the next three games would have played out the same way they did. In the playoffs, he says, "We were so dominant. … Looking back, I don't think that would have stopped us."
Just the same, he's happy such a question didn't have to be answered.
Past Holt Arena Historical Stories
50 Years of Holt Arena
1992 Globe of Death
