The way the 3-0 Utah Utes shut out the 0-3 Utah State Aggies on Saturday was remarkable. But in head coach Bronco Mendenhall’s first game of the Battle of Brothers rivalry, the Utes gave the matchup a whole new meaning, showing they’ve got hearts, even if it is for their opponents. 

During the tough outing for the Aggies, their captain, redshirt senior LB Harrison Taggart, met with a scary injury, leaving the 41,455-strong Rice-Eccles Stadium in grim, anxious silence.

With 8:33 left in the second quarter, Taggart was about to tackle the Utes RB Daniel Bray when his head hit his knee instead. Within a second, his body went limp as he stayed unresponsive on the field for several minutes. As the medical staff looked at Taggart, the players of both teams took a knee, and the head coaches went to the LB to check up on him before they got more updates.

An Ambulance took Taggart off on the stretcher with a neck brace. He was taken to the University of Utah Hospital, located on campus. School officials said he was in concussion protocol and had suffered a neck injury. The worst part was that during the early minutes after the tackle, his lower body was moving, but it had stopped by the time the ambulance came in. However, the captain gave some visuals that will keep the Aggies hopeful.

As he was being taken into the ambulance, Taggart got his conscious back. He raised his index finger to the sky as the crowd stood up, giving him a standing ovation. At the time, the game was not the priority, as the Utes head coach also confessed. After all, it was a frightening scene that made many players on the field wonder when their time would be. See for yourself:

Before that hit, Taggart was rather busy proving why he is the defensive star of his team. He entered the rivalry game with 13 tackles through Utah State’s first two games and had already added five more against the Utes. After their 33-0 flushout, Utah State coach Bronco Mendenhall did not try to dress up the situation.

Utah State and the Utes’ teams send prayers to Taggart as they receive a positive update

Mendenhall remained positive as he shared an update

Mendenhall was the first to speak of his player, who saw everything happen in real time.

“I know I have to be somewhat careful in terms of what I can share medically and not, but it was significant enough,” he said. “I think I’ll just stop with he went off on a spine board, and we’re concerned, and that’s, I think, probably as far as I should go until I have more accurate information. We’re hopeful.”

Then Mendenhall offered the clearest explanation of why the injury hit the Aggies so hard. He called Harrison Taggart “the heartbeat of our program.” After all, he is a team captain and one of the most experienced players on the roster. He had entered Week 3 as a preseason All-Pac-12 selection and one of Utah State’s main defensive pieces.

The Draper, Utah, native has taken a winding route through college football, with stops at Oregon, BYU, and California before returning home to Utah State. His experience was supposed to be one of the pieces Bronco Mendenhall could lean on while rebuilding the Aggies. Utah’s head coach Morgan Scalley had another reason to feel the weight of the moment.

Scalley began his postgame presser with prayers to Taggart

“First and foremost, really, prayers go out to Harrison Taggart,” Scalley said to begin his post-game press conference. “In talking to Coach Mendenhall and getting some updates, it sounds like he’s got feeling back in legs, but I don’t have official word on that.

“Harrison’s a kid that we recruited at Utah. I know his mom and I went to school together, so really praying for him. That’s not something that you want to see ever, and that’s the unfortunate thing about this game, so prayers go out to Harrison.”

Scalley recruited the LB out of Utah’s Corner Canyon High, but he chose to go to Oregon instead. He then transferred to BYU for two seasons before going to Cal for a year and then to the Aggies. He registered five tackles in Saturday’s game against Utah before the injury.

Many players, on both sides, also sent their prayers to Taggart, knowing that injury is the name of the game they play, but seeing it happen to someone in front of them is always frightening.

The opponent quarterback shares raw emotions for Taggart

“Man, I don’t wish that on anybody,” Utah quarterback Devon Dampier said after the game. “We’ve all worked so hard to get to where we are today. There’s so much behind the scenes work that you guys don’t get to see, but just for that to happen to somebody, that does hit the heart pretty well.

“I think everyone kind of felt that, and just happy he’s doing well. We got a little bit of feedback that he’s doing better than where he was at. God bless him.”

The biggest task was restarting the game after Taggart was taken to the hospital.

The toughest part of Saturday’s game was to resume play after the incident

It’s not always that you see a player go down and stay unresponsive on the field for several minutes. These injuries are the reason why there are so many rules to protect the players. But when they do happen, what do you do?

“When you see someone that plays your game and you see that type of thing happen to them, that can go through your mind: ‘Well, when’s my time?’ So the coaches did a really good job of keeping the guys focused, talking about football,” Scalley said. “Obviously we paid much respect to the young man and to Utah State.

“That’s just one of the challenges of the game, and it’s really on us coaches and it’s part of our culture, right? It starts with me. You got to be a self-starter, got to get yourself back in.”

As word spread that he had regained feeling, the mood around the scary scene began to shift, if only slightly.

College football fans rally around Harrison Taggart

Fans weren’t talking about Utah State’s deficit or the rivalry. The most important person at the time was Taggart and his health.

“Prayers up for Harrison Taggart; hopefully he is okay! Hate seeing a great player go down like that!” one person wrote.

Another fan put the game itself into perspective. “At this moment the game is down the priority list… Thinking about Harrison Taggart,” another posted. 

There was also plenty of concern from people who knew Harrison Taggart from his time at BYU.

“Hoping for the best for former BYU LB Harrison Taggart. The worst part of football,” one fan added. 

“Harrison Taggart is down on the field, and the stretcher and ambulance are now out on the field. Scary scene for him and the Aggies. He was initially moving his lower body, but has not moved in several minutes,” one fan updated early on.

Then came the image everyone wanted to see.

“Really scary scene here at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Was incredibly silent as medical staff carefully attended to Harrison Taggart. He waves to a cheering crowd as he gets loaded into the ambulance. Good to see that at least,” another wrote.

That wave became the lasting image of an otherwise brutal moment. But football carried on. Utah State eventually fell 33-0. But the final score was almost irrelevant. For the Aggies, the hope was that the next update on Harrison Taggart would be better.