Along with my Uncle Doug and cousin Scott, I was at the Las Vegas Bowl last night to cheer on BYU. Toward the end of the game, UCLA had gradually chipped BYU’s lead down to one point, 17-16. UCLA then started from their own 2-yard line and drove down the field, finally calling a timeout with 3 seconds left in the game so their kicker could kick a 28-yard field goal to win. He had previously made three field goals, two of them from 50 yards or more, so I had little doubt he could make this one.
This was the third BYU-UCLA game I had been to, and the two previous ones had ended in defeat for BYU. This was also the third BYU bowl game I had ever been to, and the two previous ones had ended with BYU winning. So one of those two streaks had to break.
I started chanting, "Block that kick! Block that kick!" As far as I could hear, no one else chanted with me, but I kept chanting anyway. (We were in a UCLA fan section, just behind the UCLA band, but about half the fans in the section were BYU fans anyway, as was the vast majority of the crowd.)
You have to understand, deep in my heart, I did not actually believe BYU would block that kick. I chanted anyway because that’s what I feel I’m supposed to do when a kick needs to be blocked.
To my recollection, no team has ever actually blocked a kick when I was chanting "Block that kick!" until last night. When it happened, I couldn’t believe it at first. I’m still amazed BYU won that game.
So, incredibly, my bowl winning streak beat out my UCLA losing streak.