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Curses, foiled again! BYU defeats Ags in second half By
Doug Layne Special to the Hard News Cafe A funny thing happened on the way to the Aggie locker room Friday night, as they took a 34-7 lead going into halftime. They saw their 27-point lead vanish in the second half as the Brigham Young Cougars came up with one of their greatest come-from-behind victories ever, to stun the sold-out crowd in Romney Stadium. It's a hard lose but you can always take it," Utah State senior receiver Kevin Curtis said. It's a hard way to learn. Although Utah State dominated the first half, they got off to a rocky start as they threw two interceptions in the opening moments of the game, but the Aggie defense held tight and gave up no points during the first two positions of play. Utah State finally got things going and scored on a 21-yard field goal to take the lead over the 17- point favored Cougars. The Aggies' lead increased to 17-0 early in the second quarter as James Samuel ran it in from 73 yards out. Everything looked to be going USUs way and began to look like they were going to blow away their rivals from down south as Jerome Dennis picked off Bret Engemann at the end of the first half and ran the ball in for the score to give the Aggies a very impressive 34-7 lead going into the break. Utah State went into the break with a total of 380 yards total offense, more then they gained in the entire games against Utah, Nebraska and Iowa. "We had a lot of momentum going into the half," Curtis said. Unfortunately for Utah State, that momentum did not last too long. The Cougars were a much different team to start the second half. "I told the other coaches at half time that I could yell and scream at them but I won't," BYU Head Coach Gary Crowton said. "I told the players to be calm we can come back." Engemann kept his quarterback duties and started the second half, unlike the last two weeks when Lance Pendleton took his place. "I had to go with Bret, how is he going to get better if I don't let him?" Crowton said. The Cougars then scored on their next four positions and took the lead for good as Engemann connected with Gabriel Reid for an 18-yard touchdown, giving BYU the 35-34 lead. "The bottom line is we needed to stop them and we didn't," Coach Dennehy said. "No one stepped up and got it done." Utah State got one last chance to come up with the victory as they started to march the ball down the field, but Brandon Heaney picked off Fuentes to end any chance the Aggies had. The rivalry between USU and BYU will come to an end for two years now and will pick up again in 2005.
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