Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
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SALT LAKE CITY — Take heart football fans: We're now only weeks away from the time when college teams break out the helmets for the start of fall camp. The illuminating rays of a new season will soon be poking up over the horizon, vanquishing the offseason's long reign of darkness.
In an effort to help tide over your football appetite to early August, we've compiled video of the top-10 most influential plays of BYU and Utah's 2014 season.
Plays were selected based on the impact they had on the game's outcome, positive or negative, and are listed purely by chronological order, as they occurred throughout the season.
In the edition, we'll relive the most impactful plays of the Utah's up-and-down 2014 season.
10. Kaelin Clay does his best Desmond Howard impression at The Big House
Sure, Michigan was down in 2014. Its 5-7 record left it outside of bowl eligibility for the first time since 2009, ultimately resulting in Brady Hoke's termination. But this game was still against Michigan in the Big House, and Kaelin Clay sucked the air out of 100,000-plus filled stadium with his 66-yard punt return touchdown at the start of the second quarter.
9. Vince Mayle's 81-yard touchdown catch caps Wazzu's comeback win
Once up 21-0 on the Cougars, the Utes found themselves clinging to a 27-21 lead with 5:13 to go in the fourth. Utah corner Dominique Hatfield slips and falls while attempting to cover Vince Mayle, safety Marcus Williams takes a terrible tackling angle and nickel defender Justin Thomas gets pancaked by a receiver. Mayle has nothing but open field as he races into the end zone for the game-winning score.
8. Dres Anderson burns the Bruin secondary on a spectacular 42-yard touchdown catch
Already up 7-0 on the No. 8 Bruins, Utah's Kendall Thompson underthrows a deep pass to a double-covered Dres Anderson. Anderson beats the double coverage, gets his hands on the ball, begins to lose it and then pulls it back in with one hand while falling backward over both Bruin defenders into the end zone.
7. Devontae Booker's walk-off touchdown seals Utah's 2OT win at Oregon State
Utah only completed nine passes for 62 yards passing against Oregon State, but that didn't matter when your running back goes for 229 yards and three touchdowns. Devontae Booker's punishing ground attack only got stronger as the game wore on, finishing the Beavers off on a 19-yard walk-off touchdown run in double-overtime.
6. Travis Wilson hits Kaelin Clay in the end zone with 0:08 left to stun USC
After USC wide receiver Nelson Agholor inexplicably ran out of bounds one yard short of the sticks on fourth down, Travis Wilson led the Utes on a two-minute, 73-yard drive ending with Clay's one-yard touchdown grab to beat the No. 20 Trojans 24-21.
5. Andy Phillips misses 35-yard OT field goal attempt against Arizona State
Kicker Andy Phillips had been 3-for-3 on field goals against the Sun Devils when he lined up for his fourth attempt in overtime. Although a Kyle Whittingham timeout wiped out his initial miss, Phillips was unable to connect on the mulligan. The miss allowed for Arizona State offense to play conservative and set up the game-winning 36-yard field goal to beat the Utes.
Despite the miss, Phillips would go on to finish the season tied as the fifth-most accurate FBS kicker in 2014.
4. Kaelin Clay does his best DeSean Jackson impression against Oregon
Clay's gaffe quickly went viral, inspiring YouTube parody videos from Salt Lake to Taiwan. More importantly, it swung the score from a 14-0 Utah lead to a 7-7 tie, and sparked the Ducks to 24 straight points. Oregon went on to win 51-27.
3. Kenneth Scott reels in game-winner in 2OT against Stanford
Utah was facing a third-and-1 in double-overtime, down by a field goal on the road. Expecting the Utes to give the ball to Booker, the Stanford defense stacked nine defenders in the box as it awaited a middle run. Instead, Wilson turned right and fired a slant pass to a wide-open Kenneth Scott, who hauled in the reception in the end zone to give the Utes their second walk-off overtime win on the season.
2. Nick Wilson runs wild in Arizona's 42-10 pounding of the Utes
The Utes were still breathing at the start of the fourth quarter, down only 21-10 against a team that was forced into playing their backup quarterback. After forcing the Wildcats into a third-and-2, Arizona running back Nick Wilson gashed the Utah defense on a 75-yard touchdown run, effectively putting the game out of reach for Wilson and the Utes' sputtering offense.
1. Devontae Booker rips off a 60-yard touchdown run to regain double-digit Las Vegas Bowl lead
Reaching into their bag of tricks, Utah jumped out to an early 14-0 lead over Colorado State in Las Vegas. The Rams responded with some trickery to take back some of the momentum and pull within a touchdown of the Utes. But on the very next offensive play, Booker undid the damage by breaking off on a 65-yard touchdown run. The score was the first of a 24-3 run to win the game 45-10. Alex Clark is a sports writing intern for KSL.com. He currently studies digital journalism at BYU. Email: alclark35@gmail.com Twitter: alclark35
