BYU Football Top 100: No. 15 Clay Brown - Greatest Game Ever?
The start of the BYU Football season is now only 15 days away from starting.
We are only 15 days away from the start of the Football season. That is half a month away! Right now, the biggest concern for the Cougars appears to be at the tight end position which is odd because at the end of the season in 2018 it appeared to be the strongest.
First, Dallin Holker decided to leave for a mission. Then we found out that Moroni Laulu-Pututau who is coming off of an injury, is ineligible to practice until the end of summer term. Finally, Hank Tuipulotu tore his ACL and will be out for the season. Suddenly, the tight end position may be coming down to Matt Bushman, who also is coming off of surgery himself.
Hopefully MLP will be 100% healthy and will be able to practice with the team enough to be prepared to play against Utah in just over two weeks, but if not, Matt Bushman is going to be an every down tight end, a concern because of his blocking.
Today's player in the countdown is a tight end who has arguably the most memorable catch in BYU Football history.
No. 15 Clay Brown - Tight End, Punter - 1977-1980
Depending on who you ask, the biggest catch ever for BYU Football will either be Beck to Harline, Stinnett to Young or McMahon to Brown. There is no other catch that can even be in the same category as those three. From a college football standpoint, McMahon to Brown is a Top 10 catch ever.
While that is what pushes Clay Brown to No. 15 on this list, he was also a great player overall and a decent punter. Back then, punters were often skill position players which gave the special teams a different style of look danger.
Rankings
Impact A
The catch forever changed BYU Football . Not only was it a game winning hail mary, it was in BYU's first ever Bowl Game win to cap off a 12-1 overall season. It is what really put BYU on the map and got them national attention. He had another touchdown catch in that game as well and without his play BYU probably loses that game and perhaps a key recruit or two would have never played for the Cougars which would have forever changed everything.
Statistics B-
As a normal player, Clay Brown was really good. Against players like Dennis Pitta, Andrew George, Gordon Hudson and Jonny Harline, he doesn't quite match up. For his career Brown 1,681 receiving yards and 17 touchdown catches. The most impressive stat is his career 19.2 yard per catch. I'm not sure if any other player has ever matched that, there isn't any real way of checking that I'm aware of.
Brown was also a pretty good punter. During his career he punted 118 times for 4933 yards with an average 41.8 yards per kick and a long of 61. Not bad for a guy who also can catch TD passes.
Memorable Moments A+
Whether is it watching the play again at LES 50 years later, seeing it in ESPN's Top College Football moments or on any bowl game special, the McMahon to Brown miracle play will forever be the moment that BYU Football went from a good underdog team to a Powerhouse team under Lavell Edwards. That wasn't his only memorable moment though. During that same game, he had 160 yards receiving on only five catches and THREE touchdowns. That efficiency brings up the question, did Clay Brown have the greatest game ever for BYU Football?
Yeah, probably.