Mad Max, The Road Warrior: BYU's Hall Gets Ultimate Reprieve

If you are within the greater Salt Lake City area, there's a good chance you'll stumble across a hot commodity.

It's a bumper sticker promptly stating: "I intercepted Max Hall."

There's another asking: "Honk if you intercepted Max Hall!"

1,254 miles away, BYU's senior quarterback put all his demons to bed. Max Hall didn't just put them to bed, he lied them down, tucked them in all neat and nice and bid adieu to what was once a laughing stock of an M.O.

Gone are those six turnovers against Utah last year. Erased, those four in Forth Worth, Texas, after the Cougars were brought down to earth by TCU, 32-7.

All of that is out of the window, on the side of the highway, steamrolled over a few times.

Max Hall has a new image. A new reflection.

Giant killer.

Be honest with yourself, even the most unrealistic, crazed Cougar fan never foresaw this finish in their mind.

There was to be a shootout of epic proportions. It was supposed to be Sam Bradford with his scalpel to the BYU defense all evening. Hall was supposed to make plays, too.

What we saw take place at the brand-spanking-new-billion(s)-dollar-indoor party Saturday afternoon was an enigma in college football, of sorts.

Two high-octane offenses didn't just look lost, they were lost.

Hall was caught under pressure all night and coughed up two more picks on his now squashed resume rightly-dubbed "big games".

The game was boring. It was convoluted and at times unwatchable.

Truly.

The team's combined for 22 penalties resulting in 180 yards in total losses.

Most obviously, it was the No. 3 Sooners, who played out of their element, out of rhythm and out of their minds (not the good way).

The ostensible Cougar defense couldn't hold up with a 18-wheeler offense such as this.

Where's the Mountain West anyway? Somewhere between Denver and Reno, I think.

Nope. BYU did their job and played to their strengths.

Aggressive, assignment-filled football. They played a full 60 in Arlington, Texas, and this is what they have to show for it.

Could the Cougars have bested the third-best team in the nation had they played against the Heisman Trophy winner for another half?

Sure, the could've, but they wouldn't have.

That's not the issue. The issue is this, the Cougars as utterly flawed as they were last year—maybe it was the departure of the overly "righteous" Austin Collie that did the trick—won a big game.

I would classify this as more of a big game.

This was as colossal as you can get.

A once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity that needed to be carpe diem'd at any cost.

Seize the carp, they did.

Who would've thought that BYU could've won with four turnovers against an Oklahoma team? Or let alone corral a dual-headed dragon monster spitting thunder and lightning out of the backfield?

Holding Chris Brown and DeMarco Murray to 59 and 58 yards rushing, respectively is worthy of a gold star in of itself.

As for all the other Heisman, potential No. 1 overall NFL draft pick mumbo jumbo, Coleby Clawson took care of that one.

No worries, guys. Didn't think the most important name you'll hear in Cougar football or all of college football for that matter would be Coleby Clawson. Did ya?

The story isn't Bradford's arm, shoulder, leg, foot or haircut. Nor was it Jermaine Gresham's absence.

Not Harvey Unga going M.I.A., not Brian Kariya (who?) putting in the performance of a lifetime, albeit a 42 yard night on 17 carries.

It was Hall and the whole Cougar program.

The word of the night: evolution.

Not a popular one on the BYU campus for a number of reasons that'll remain disclosed. But the fact is, this team won this game, when a year ago, they wouldn't have. 

Last season, Cougar head coach Bronco Mendenhall went on a quest for perfection and ended up tasting what horse manure savored like on his tongue.

Hall, the biggest choke artist since that one guy on those Buffalo Bills Super Bowl teams and that Bill Buckner dude, proved all that he had within was worth every bit on the outside.

16 plays later, 78 yards later and after going 9-for-10 on the final drive from the opposite direction of hellfire and brimstone, Hall rolled out and found Texas native McKay Jacobson sitting alone on an island.

Pretty anticlimactic for a guy that choked so many times, we lost count of how many times and how he managed to dilapidate everything he touched.

There was no stretch for the goal-line, nor was there a thread between five OU defensive backs.

Just a guy on an island and luckily for Cougar fans, Hall found him all safe and sound.

It wasn't pretty, not by any means. It was the least attractive Kardashian.

That doesn't matter, as it shouldn't.

The insurmountable step taken by BYU cannot be overlooked. They beat a team that made it to the National Championship barely a year ago. It's as big as it gets for the time being.

And smack-dab in the middle of it, Max Hall.

Yeah, you'll still see those bumper stickers proudly worn by rival Utah fans around the streets of Salt Lake, but at least now Hall, his team and all of the Cougar followers now have some return firepower.

The road to respect is a difficult one, but Hall ultimately made a believer of all members of the college football nation Saturday at the new Cowboys Stadium.

As the sun set on the first week of the 2009 season, Hall woke up as a probable goat and went to bed an unforeseen conqueror, having slain his preceding demons.

That's more than just a win, even against the Sooners.