Gordon Monson: Ute coach Kyle Whittingham called it ‘ridiculous.’ The Cougars have been their own kind of ridiculous all season.

A ruined season couldn’t ruin a perfect one on Saturday night.

And all the postgame frustration, outwardly spoken or otherwise, about the refs couldn’t and wouldn’t change that fact.

What the Utah Utes did during the rivalry game certainly threatened to mess over BYU’s dream season, they did darn-near everything they possibly could to find some measure of relief out of their season’s rubble by swinging a wrecking ball at their rival, but, ultimately, all they took from the effort was more debris of their own.

Yeah, Utah, now 4-5 overall and 1-5 in the Big 12, having suffered four straight losses — make it five now — and all the disappointment that so much defeat conjures, went ahead and played almost every bit the equal of unbeaten and unblemished BYU at Rice-Eccles in a memorable contest that, on account of what happened in the closing minutes, it’d just as soon never remember or revisit.

That additional aforementioned debris came in the form of a 22-21 failure, a beating that was made all the more devastating by the way it happened. And the way it happened was rather remarkable. That’s one word for it. Kyle Whittingham had other words to describe it.

Words such as “unfortunate” and “ridiculous.”

Utah athletic director Mark Harlan claimed victory had been “stolen” from the Utes.

A couple of calls near game’s end royally ticked off Whittingham in a way that is rare for him to exhibit in postgame interviews, calls that he sure seemed to want to scream about, but didn’t, at least not into the microphone. That yelling had already been done at the officials from the sideline.

“I don’t want to go over those,” he said, afterward. “They are what they are. It’s a ridiculous situation. I’m not going to get into it. Things out there were ridiculous.”

He added later: “The game was over. And then it wasn’t.”

He also said: “Tough way to lose a ballgame. Unfortunate way to lose a ballgame. I’m proud of our guys, proud of our players. They battled. They should hold their heads high. It’s not on them. It’s not on them. They played hard. They did everything they could from start to finish. And I’m proud of them. And it’s unfortunate. It’s unfortunate that it turned out the way it did.”

The Utes led for much of this game, outplaying BYU and looking for all the world like they would take victory away from an opponent that, quite plainly, is better than they are. How sweet it would be to mess over, to smudge the masterpiece the Cougars had been painting.

For most of the first half, Utah looked like an outfit that had become unfamiliar, almost unrecognizable to its own fans. It was suddenly determined, confident, physical. It had the look of a team that thought it deserved to win. It even moved the ball and scored it, too, on attack.

Where had that been over the last month? The Utes were able to pass and run and, most importantly, get into the end zone from the red zone.

Brandon Rose, a back-back-up quarterback who had barely seen the field in previous games, even ones when play from that particular position had hurt the Utes, led his offense to three touchdowns. His mobility and even his poise caused BYU real trouble, and to most everyone’s surprise, the favored Cougars trailed by 11 points at the half.

It was easy at that point to wonder why Rose hadn’t been given more opportunity by coaches in earlier losses. If he could move the ball against the Big 12’s best team, at least record-wise, maybe he could have outplayed a talented freshman who often looked unprepared to get the job done.

In fact, while complimenting the Utes’ performance over those first two quarters was deserved and due, you also had to wonder where the hell this kind of energy, this brand of ball had been against Arizona and Arizona State, TCU and Houston. Did Utah need to face a rival to get itself in proper form?

Things, though, went south, leaned toward the Team Down South, in subsequent minutes, especially in the closing frame.

That’s when a series of extraordinary events helped wipe away Utah’s chance at victory, and miffed Whittingham big time

Maybe you saw what happened. With BYU down, 21-19, the Cougars having narrowed the margin via an impressive drive that was capped by a touchdown, but also a failed two-point conversion try, they took a final possession with 1:56 left to play. BYU commenced that last-ditch drive at its own 9-yard line and initially stumbled and bumbled from there, quarterback Jake Retzlaff throwing three consecutive incompletions, and then, on fourth and 10, Retzlaff looked like he was trapped in the end zone. But Kalani Sitake had called a timeout before the play started.

A subsequent holding penalty called against Utah, which, depending upon whose side you’re on, either bailed the Cougars out or gave them what they deserved — namely, the ball on the 20-yard line and a first down. And new life. New life that Whittingham thought was … what was it again? … oh, yeah, ridiculous. Next thing, Retzlaff hit Chase Roberts with a dart to midfield, Hinckley Ropati broke off a significant run, and … well, with mere seconds remaining, Will Ferrin drilled a field goal that won the game.

“Whenever they tell me to go out there and kick a ball, I go kick a ball,” Ferrin said. “I love it.”

BYU players and coaches broke into a spontaneous celebration, jumping up and down like exploding kernels of JiffyPop on a hot burner. What was nothing short of shocking to most everyone watching seemed to them more like a manifestation, an affirmation, that they were fulfilling not just a dream season, but a season of destiny.

Said linebacker Isaiah Glasker: “We believe in the boys. They believe. On that last series, we knew our offense was going to come through.”

Sitake said in the aftermath: “Glad we got this win and our players got to be on the other side of this and celebrate this win. … The guys stepped up and made plays. It wasn’t pretty in a lot of different ways, but you gotta give credit to Utah for the way they played the game, and the way our guys flipped it over in the second half to get the win.”

Belief comes easy when the record says 9-0. As Sitake mentioned, the Cougars were far from flawless in this game, making mistakes that were born out of nerves and panic. And it wasn’t just the players, the coaches, too, contributed to the hubbub. Even getting plays called, proper substitutions in place, and the ball snapped on time was a challenge. And Utah’s defense deserved praise for disrupting an attack that had grown accustomed to running much more smoothly, regardless of what happened at game’s end.

What happened was that BYU took one more step forward, straight into and through its primary rival, a rival that was looking for reasons to feel better about itself. Instead, the Utes absorbed one more beatdown in a season full of them, a season that was expected to be filled with not just promise, but fulfilled promise. Their fulfilled promise.

Seeing BYU gain more of the very promise Utah — and so many others who had sung its preseason praises — had expected for itself, was one more blow to a ruined season that now has little more than a bowl game nobody cares about for which to play.

A word to describe that: ridiculous.

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