This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

To complete a pass that will become as legendary in BYU lore as "The Catch" is for the San Francisco 49ers, BYU quarterback John Beck relied on the instincts honed in games played so long ago it didn't matter who won.

"I've been involved in so many backyard games to know if you can take some time and run one way, someone else may have a chance to sneak out the other side," he said.

That someone else was Jonny Harline, whom the Utes lost in the traffic of the end zone after the final seconds ticked away. Harline started out on the right side, cut across the middle to the left corner and turned around and, from his knees, hauled in the game-winning pass.

"[Beck] saw me and he just floated it out there," Harline said. "All I was thinking is, 'Just catch it.' When you're in the middle of a game like that, you don't really think about what it could mean. It still hasn't hit me yet. I was just hanging out there until he saw me."

The catch was Harline's third of the drive. He caught a 17-yard pass on fourth-and-4 with 35.6 seconds left and another for 7 yards.

Beck threw to Harline in the right corner of the end zone with 7.8 seconds to go, but the pass was batted down by Brice McCain.

During the timeout that followed, Beck told Harline he'd look for him.

"I took a deep breath and told myself I'd been preparing all my life to make a play like this and to just find a way to win," Beck said.

He did just that by camping out behind his line, waiting patiently for someone to get open. He didn't see an open receiver in the mass of people to the right, passed up trying to force a ball into a receiver who crossed over the middle, and finally looked to the left where Harline was waiting for him.

"Jonny somehow just slipped over there," teammate Bryce Mahuika said. "How could they leave him so open I don't know. To win on the last-second play is just crazy."