What Chad Lewis said about BYU’s 1996-inspired throwback uniforms, and more

BYU is breaking out its new 1996-inspired throwback uniforms for Saturday’s contest against Kansas State, but one star from that year’s Cotton Bowl-winning squad has a minor bone to pick with the classic ensemble.
“I just don’t like white on white,” ‘96 tight end and current BYU associate athletic director Chad Lewis playfully said on BYU Radio’s “Deep Blue” podcast this week. “We went up to Washington, got beat white on white, and I was like, ‘I don’t want to do that ever again.’”
Yes, the lone occasion the Cougars donned white on white in 1996 did happen to coincide with the team’s only loss that season, but it remains a minuscule blemish on an otherwise outstanding campaign: a 14-1 record, WAC championship, No. 5 final national ranking and Cotton Bowl victory over Kansas State, who visits Provo Saturday for the first clash against the Cougars since that dramatic New Year’s Day in Dallas.
Lewis was a key piece to BYU’s offensive attack in ‘96, catching 37 passes for 420 yards and five touchdowns before embarking on a nine-year Pro Bowl caliber career in the NFL.
“It represents one of the best teams in BYU football history, which has had so many great teams and so many great players,” Lewis said of the 1996 Cougars. “But it was one of the teams that was right at the top. It was competitive. It was stacked at every position. We had great competition in practice. We brought that competition to the field. A lot of the games we wanted to start a track meet and light the scoreboard with points. We had a lot of wins.”
Memories of 1996 will be in full force this weekend against the Wildcats, thanks in part to the throwback uniforms that fans have raved about and Lewis does still very much enjoy.
“The drop shadow uniform, which we thought was cool at the time, I still think it’s cool,” Lewis said. “It looks good.”
Here are more highlights from Lewis’ appearance on the “Deep Blue” podcast.
“He was so accurate. He was so competitive. He was a great leader on and off the field. He came here from Southern California as a Catholic boy and fit into this BYU place perfectly. He loved it. He loved stepping into the tradition of amazing BYU quarterbacks. He respected that tradition. He valued it. His family loved it.
“… He came in, took the reins and did a fabulous job. I love Steve, loved him on the field. Fiery dude, he wanted to win. He was a blast to play with, train with, practice with. And (it’s) no surprise at all to any of us that he’s had great success in the coaching ranks.”
“We knew it was going to be a battle. And some things happened in that game that were uncharacteristic of our team. There were a couple of drops, a couple of missed field goals.
“There were just things that were in the gears of our momentum that just weren’t clicking correctly. There was a big thing before the game where our team was worried about the socks that we were wearing. Some of the guys wanted the long blue socks all the way up. Some wanted what we were wearing before, just the small Nike white socks that were low. And LaVell (Edwards) lost his mind pregame because here we were talking about socks and what uniform combo we had, and he was hot as a pistol. He was like, ‘What in the world is going on? You guys were worried about socks? We came up here to play a game.’
“To not win that game, even though they were a great team, all of us look back all these years later, and it still hurts. They deserved to win because they beat us, but that game meant so much to us.”
“We all talked about it both before and after that game. It galvanized us. We knew we were a good team. We knew that we could compete with anyone, and we knew we let that one go. There was enough leadership on that team, there was enough intensity on that team, both in practice, in preparation and in the rest of the games that season, that we used that game as definitely motivation. It was not going to happen again. It did not happen again, which was cool, but we felt like we couldn’t let that happen again.”
“We knew it was everything. We knew that the respect we were fighting for nationally, we had to win this game. We thought if we didn’t win this game, there’s a chance (the NCAA) could freeze us out of a bowl game like they did Wyoming. It was a crime, but that’s the way it turned out.
“The biggest part of this game for us was Itula Mili. We go into the game, we’re doing well. It’s a highly competitive game. Itula blows out his knee on a wicked hit in the second quarter of that game. None of us wanted to play the rest of the game. We went into halftime and we surrounded Itula and his family. … We were all crying. We knew how wicked the injury was to his knee. It was like a funeral at halftime.
“We didn’t want to go back and play. I wanted to get on the bus and go home. It just made me sick. I was bombed. I was so hurt for him. And as it turned out, we started the second half, we were not there. Our spirits were not there. It took a while for us to get fully engaged again and embrace the challenge that we had.
“It ended up taking a last second drive at the game to tie it up. … Ethan Pochman made some unbelievable high pressure kicks. We get into overtime with them. … Ethan comes in and he kicks a game winner. Again, we have another crowd storming the field moment that year, and we were just going bananas thinking we were going to the Fiesta Bowl, and we were ranked fifth in the country.”
“LaVell went back to New York for the bowl reveal party, where they were going to announce who was going to the Fiesta Bowl. I think at no point in LaVell’s career was he disrespected more personally than on that trip. He ended up leaving the studio by himself, catching a cab and leaving. He said it was a rough one. And they put in, I think, Penn State to the Fiesta Bowl, who had two losses, and we just thought it was a complete ripoff. We were hot, we were justified in our anger, and that helped.”
“This was the first time BYU was in a Jan. 1 New Year’s Day bowl game. That meant something to all of us. We wanted to win that game for LaVell. We felt like, ‘This is his career. This is the first time he’s in a New Year’s Day game. We are going to win this game.’ That was part of the driver.
“I remember just in practice that week, practice was intense. We had a good team, and when you have a good team, you have a lot of competition in practice. There were moments in practice that week that were testy and hot. That helped us get our minds right for the game.
“And in the game, it was a great battle. They had a very good team, and it took all we had and then some to come out victorious.”
“We loved each other. We weren’t perfect, we didn’t all hang out together, but man, we loved each other as a team, we had a powerful bond, we earned it on the practice field, we proved it on the game field. And that season was, it was all that wrapped up.
“I feel bad to every one of my teammates, because I could go down, I could talk about everyone, their involvement, what they gave to the team, what they gave that no one will ever know, like in practice or off the field, and we just came together as a team.”