When Will Ferrin and Sam Vander Haar trotted onto the field at Rice-Eccles Stadium with nine seconds to play against rival Utah, their wives could barely watch, in fact, one of them didn't.
"I didn't watch the Utah kick, which I feel sad about," Hallie Vander Haar told the "Y's Guys" podcast this week. Her husband, Sam, is BYU's punter and the holder for Ferrin's field goals and point-after-tries. "I was so nervous!"
Courtney Ferrin looked on from her seat in the stands.
"I was sick to my stomach. I think another wife has video of me saying, 'I'm going to throw up,'" Courtney said. "I had both hands on my face."
In a flurry of 1.3 seconds, Dalton Riggs delivered a perfect snap. Vander Haar put the ball in position and Ferrin kicked it 44 yards through the uprights to beat the Utes 22-21 and keep the No. 9 Cougars undefeated.
"As soon as I put the ball down, I knew it was in," said Sam Vander Haar, a junior-to-be from Melbourne, Australia. "You just have that feeling when the operation goes right, when Dalton and I do our job, it's more likely going to be in. As soon as Will's foot hit the ball I was like, 'Yeah, we're good!' I celebrated early. You can't really see it on the cameras, but I was getting around Will pretty early."
Ferrin's game winner in Salt Lake City is his favorite among a school-record 16 consecutive made field goals to finish the season — but he wants more and so does his team.
"Part of the culture we have built is 'This is what we did last year, and the result wasn't good enough for us. How do we do better? How can I take this lift and take it up a notch?' There is so much we can do," said Will Ferrin, a rising senior from Kaysville, Utah. "We have a couple of new snappers, so we go out and kick. We are detailed about what we are doing, and we are trying to get our operation to feel as comfortable as we can. If we can do that now, things are a lot easier in the fall."
Playing to prove people wrong was an easy motivator after the Cougars were picked to win 4.5 games last fall. Going 11-2 and blowing out No. 25 Colorado 36-14 in the Alamo Bowl are sure to reset outside expectations. ESPN has already tabbed BYU No. 9 in its early preseason poll.
"We are focused on the people in the building, we are focused on our team. Going into a game it's not about winning the over-under 4-and-a-half games, it's about winning every game that we can, winning every play we can, every one-on-one, making every kick, hitting 42-net on every punt," Ferrin said. "If you can do those things, everything falls into place.
"I don't think it changes from last year to this year, we are focused on the process and focused on all the little details of our crafts."
As last fall revealed, perfecting the small details can lead to accomplishing big things.
"We had a really good year last year and the talk is, 'Let's go win a national championship.' That's always present no matter how your season goes the year prior, but I think it's subconsciously more tangible in the mind of everyone else," Vander Haar said. "I think if anything, everyone is a lot more desperate to be as good as we can, as quick as we can so that we can potentially win a national championship."
What started with a full buy-in on special teams finished with a cash crop of good fortune.
Between Ferrin and Vander Haar's kicks, Keelan Marion's two kickoff returns for touchdowns, Talon Alfrey's kickoff return for a touchdown, Parker Kingston's pair of punt returns for scores and a lot of big hits in between, it is fair to argue BYU's 2024 special teams were the most productive in program history — and just about everybody is back this fall.
"I could tell early on that there was a lot of buy-in. During post-practice, guys would come up and say I'd love to be on the punt team," Vander Haar said. "That was a unique thing for me to experience compared to Pitt. It was really cool to have a lot of guys so willing to be on the punt team. You want guys on your punt and field goal team that want to be there."
BYU punter Sam Vander Haar had some big cleats to fill when the season started. Thus far he has delivered. | Aaron Cornia, BYU Photo
Among the special teams moments were Marion's 96-yard kickoff return against the Utes that silenced the crowd at Rice-Eccles Stadium while Kingston's 90-yard punt return (which was more like 140) against No. 13 Kansas State sent fans at LaVell Edwards Stadium into a frenzy.
"You hear people talk about how close our team was last season. On special teams, you get the offense and defense, and they are playing together, players from both sides of the ball," Ferrin said. "When you have as close of a team as we had, it's a lot easier to get buy-in for that. You get receivers who want to run down punts, safeties who want to make a play on kickoff, there is just a lot of buy-in from the group. Our team was so close, which then translates to the special teams working efficiently."
Putting their best foot forward and taking it one kick at a time are cliché's that click for both Ferrin and Vander Haar. Ferrin made 24 of 27 field goals and was 41 of 41 on extra-points. Vander Haar averaged 42.8 yards per punt and placed 14 kicks inside the opponent's 20-yard line.
In addition, both pulled off successful surprises — Ferrin took a pitch from Vander Haar and ran for a first down during a fake field goal at UCF. Instead of punting on fourth-and-10 at their own 35-yard line, Vander Harr took off and rumbled 22 yards for a first down against Baylor.
The transfer portal has its pros and cons, but when it comes to the kickers, the Cougars struck gold.
Ferrin grew up a BYU fan in a BYU family but started his career as a walk-on at Boise State.
"The more interesting thing is seeing BYU from the other angle. Seeing it from Boise State and coming down and playing at LES or playing BYU on the blue in Boise and we lose and whole stadium is chanting 'BYU' and we are all frustrated," Ferrin said. "It's a great time to be at BYU. There are so many resources available to us. There isn't much else you could want that isn't provided by BYU."
Vander Haar came to BYU from Pittsburgh.
"Based on my experience at Pitt, I just thought that every football program is probably similar in the way they go about things — the coaching, the camaraderie, things like that," he said. "But BYU is distinctively different. I think it's probably due to the church and the way Kalani (Sitake) coaches. I love it. It's a nice environment to be in (where you) can be successful."
BYU and the transfer portal brought the Ferrins and Vander Haars together through football and their friendship is built to last just as the memory they created in those waning seconds in Salt Lake City.
Getting the ball down and ready before Ferrin's foot arrived required months of practice, but in the 1.3 seconds it took, they were perfect. As the ball sailed between the goal posts, the Cougars celebrated a win for the ages and Courtney and Hallie were able to start breathing normally again.
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts "Y's Guys" at ysguys.com and is the author of the children's book "C is for Cougar," available at deseretbook
