Unga will play against TCU

Harvey Unga, forced to wait out a question of his eligibility, got his answer that he is cleared to play against TCU on Thursday just 15 minutes before the team flight left for Dallas.

Because Unga missed that flight, Unga took an American Airlines flight and arrived at the team hotel after the rest of his teammates had checked in to team headquarters in Irving.

As mentioned in a previous blog, Unga’s eligibility was over an issue of playing in a flag football game. BYU’s compliance office researched the issue with NCAA and received word that he is OK.

“Harvey was just delayed because of a question about his status,” said BYU spokesman Brett Pyne. “He will play in the game. This is not a problem, it has been taken care of.”

This was an interesting twist to this key showdown between the Cougars and Frogs.

When I got to Dallas, I got word of the Unga situation and checked it out and filed a blog. Within the same hour, I started hearing from my friends at 1280 The Zone in Salt Lake City – only they heard a rumor that Fui Vakapuna was not on the trip.

I checked that out. In the next 15 minutes, I saw Fui Vakapuna walking towards the front door of the lobby holding a water cup getting ready to go to the team fireside. I called the radio and told them that was a no go rumor.

There are all kinds of stories floating around. I don’t think BYU is going to address this beyond what Pyne told me hours ago because they may see whatever transpired as a minor distraction and they don’t want to make it a major one.

I’ve contacted the appropriate folks and asked for more clarification.