Gary Sheide’s 1974 Fiesta Bowl elevated, ended his career

Editor’s note: Second in a series on BYU’ 50th anniversary of the 1974 Fiesta Bowl team.

It was a historic first-ever bowl game for BYU and its fired-up football program, but it was also the end of the quarterback career of the immensely talented Gary Sheide .

The date was Dec. 28, 1974, in Phoenix and No. 17 BYU was riding high after an 0-3 start. Sheide was a Joe Namath clone. He wore Joe’s number and fashioned his game after Namath, his idol. He dropped back like Joe, threw like Joe, and he moved the ball, averaging 44 points a game in the last five games of the season.

All bowl week, Sheide said BYU players went to all the activities and built up their opponent, Oklahoma State, telling reporters how impressed they were with the Cowboys, how fast and big they were and they didn’t know how they’d compete with the Big Eight team. But inside, BYU players plotted to kick butt on game day.

Sheide and Company were licking their chops over facing OSU’s 5-2 Okie front of five down linemen, two linebackers and two deep safeties. They believed they could attack the OSU linebackers with running back routes out of the backfield. BYU believed OSU would struggle to cover mid-range passes in the flats. The OSU defense was built to face rival Oklahoma’s wishbone option and what they’d see out of Nebraska and Texas.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma State’s main plan was to take out Sheide. They couldn’t afford to let him have the time to choose which of many targets to hit.

That opportunity came early in the first quarter with BYU leading 6-0 on a pair of Mark Uselman field goals. BYU was moving the ball, and OSU’s famed option offense struggled to get first downs.

Sheide dropped back and hit John Betham with a perfect strike and while he watched his star receiver haul in the pass, OSU defensive tackle Phil Dokes got past a Cougar guard and blindsided Sheide, driving his shoulder into the turf.

Game over.

“It was like cutting the Robert Redford scenes from the ‘Great Gatsby.’ It shelved the show,” wrote Deseret News sports editor Hack Miller of the moment.

BYU never scored again.

“I completed like four of five and we were clicking,” remembers Sheide. “There is no doubt in my mind or for any of us, we were going to move the ball and score all game. We would have crushed them.”

His replacement, Mark Giles, came in and BYU had to adjust its entire game plan. The Cougars ended up running a lot of option plays for Giles, which played right into OSU’s defense, which defended that every day of the season. A Giles interception before halftime set up OSU’s first score in what CBS had to let play out as a boring defensive game. The Cougars fell behind 7-6 at halftime and lost 16-6.

Humbling rehabilitation

Sheide returned to Provo and tried to prepare for the Hula Bowl, where he’d play with Cal’s Steve Bartkowski and USC’s Pat Haden. He tried rehab and tried to get stronger. He had tickets to Honolulu and was excited, but the JC transfer from Antioch Community College in the Bay Area struggled to return to form.

His agent, Erwin Weiner, represented Walt Frazier, George McGinnis and Julius Erving, and wanting to expand his representation into football, signed Sheide. He was upfront with Sheide, telling him he was a first-round draft pick, but his shoulder injury was a hurdle. He had workouts with the New York Jets, Oakland Raiders and Cincinnati Bengals, later signing with Bill Walsh and the Bengals.

“But my rehab took too much time,” said Sheide.

“When I went to the Bengals, I ended up with too much pressure on it. I changed my throwing motion a bit and got tennis elbow. They now have Tommy John surgery, but back then they didn’t. They just told you to rehabilitate the surrounding muscles and that’s what I did. But I just could not get the zip back on the ball that I needed. It was very frustrating. I thought I was good enough to play, just as good as those guys (Haden, Bartkowski), but I just couldn’t get it back.”

To this day, Sheide’s elbow continues to give him trouble, exacerbated by his love of fishing and making that cast of the line for bass in Minnesota every summer. “I cast and I kind of feel it in my rotator cuff. The tendonitis comes and goes, but the shoulder hasn’t been the same.”

The Joe Namath dream was tucked away as Sheide settled down as a school teacher, his athletic career over.

A team with purpose

After the 0-3 start, the Cougars went on a tear, tying CSU in Fort Collins in a game they should have won when they had the lead, the ball and six seconds left in the game. A botched snap exchange enabled CSU to rally and score for a tie when a celebration penalty contributed to a PAT fail.

Sheide says the turning point was a players meeting where team leaders got everyone together without coaches and had a soul-searching examination of work effort, individual dedication and level of performance in practices and games. It worked.

As much as Sheide and his offense caught fire, he credits BYU’s defense for leading the team to the conference title, its first-ever bowl and success. “It was the best defense I’ve seen at BYU.”

That season marked a turn for BYU, which previously had struggled to beat Arizona State and Arizona. That year they swept the two teams.

Against ASU, BYU held the Sun Devils to 186 yards and 11 first downs, aided by two fumble recoveries, and four interceptions. Sheide threw for 223 yards and two touchdowns, completing 59 percent of his passes. He did have five interceptions and the Cougars lost three fumbles, which signals just how good BYU’s defense was that day, a 21-18 win.

The win over ranked Arizona remains one of Sheide’s best memories of that 1974 season.

The ranked Wildcats had all the momentum that week and Sheide credits linebacker coach the late Fred Whittingham for setting the tone in an impassioned pregame speech to the team.

“It was the best pregame speech I ever heard.”

Sheide said Whittingham told the team Arizona had no respect for BYU and didn’t think they were worthy of being on the same field. By the time he finished his speech, Cougar players were fired up and ready to prove their mettle.

The Cougars beat No. 16 Arizona that day 37-13 and Sheide completed 19 of 34 passes for 279 yards and five touchdowns with no interceptions. Two of his TD passes went to running back Jeff Blanc for 27 and 17 yards.

This BYU team will be marked by not only talent, with 15 players going on to play in the NFL or CFL, but it was comprised of men who decided to take the burden of elevating play upon themselves. The two wins over ASU and Arizona broke a glass ceiling for LaVell Edwards and were the foundation of his remarkable 19 WAC championships.

This team will be honored at the season opener Aug. 31 against Southern Illinois and will gather for a banquet the night before.

Doaks, the OSU All-American, team captain and defensive MVP of the 1974 Fiesta Bowl, who delivered that career-ending hit on Sheide, played two seasons in the NFL for Buffalo. He died at age 34 in December 1989 in a Jacksonville, Arkansas, hospital from heart failure.

Sheide is sometimes forgotten when people celebrate the train of QB talent that has come through BYU over the decades, Marc Wilson, Jim McMahon, Steve Young, Robbie Bosco, Ty Detmer and other All-Americans.

Sheide was a productive, entertaining and talented quarterback who deserved, above everything else, to have finished that Fiesta Bowl game and get his dues beyond in the NFL.