This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

He has been with the BYU football team since 2012, but my guess is not many Cougar fans are familiar with Jake Ziolkowski, a wide receiver from Wauconda, Ill., a suburb of Chicago.

I interviewed Ziolkowski this week, hoping to get some insights about Michigan from the redshirt junior who grew up closer to Ann Arbor (about five hours away) than any player or coach on the team.

Also, I wanted to talk to Ziolkowski about his high school coaches, who happen to be former Cougars who played in the 1984 Holiday Bowl, BYU's 24-17 win over Big Blue that clinched the national championship.

Receiver Glen Kozlowski coached Ziolkowski at Wauconda High when he was a freshman, then took the head job at North Chicago High in 2009. He's now the head coach at Guerin Prep in River Grove, Ill.

When Koz left Wauconda, assistant coach Dave Mills, a former BYU tight end who had followed his best friend to the Midwest, became the head coach and guided Ziolkowski his final three years of high school.

Ziolkowski said he will have a ton of friends and family members at the Big House, provided he can scrounge up enough tickets from his teammates. Each player is allotted four tickets to each road game, so it is customary for them to trade for more, or less, depending on the location, etc.

"It will be fun to go back home," he said. "I got a lot of family going to the game. It will be good to be back in the Midwest, back in my old stomping grounds. But we are just looking forward to Michigan. It is going to be good competition, so we are looking forward to that."

Ziolkowski is a special teams ace who is waiting to get his chance as a receiver, where he is buried on the depth chart.

Northwestern is the closest Big Ten school to his hometown, but he says folks there are either Michigan or Notre Dame fans.

"I've never been to the Big House," he said. "So I am excited. Growing up, you are either a Michigan or Notre Dame fan. You pick one side, and it was kinda like a Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox rivalry. You loved one side and hated the other side. It was kinda like that.

I don't really know anybody on the Michigan team. I don't know anybody I played against that went there, but they are a good team. We are working as hard as we can to be ready for them."

Ziolkowski, who is not LDS, was referred to BYU by Mills and Kozlowski, especially the latter — a longtime family friend.

"He has been one of my mentors and a really good family friend throughout this whole process of me getting here and me being here," Ziolkowski said. "He is always giving me advice and has been my mentor and always been there for me, just in terms of preparing me for this level of football and kind of telling me what to expect."

Despite not getting a lot of playing time yet, and not being a member of the predominant faith, Ziolkowski said his experience living far away from home has been a pleasant one.

"The people are super great. I am not [Mormon], so that was a little bit different just coming in in the beginning. The atmosphere, you can't simulate it anywhere else. It is completely different. But this is a great place. I have grown to really love it in the three years I have been here. It is nothing like the Midwest. The mountains and stuff are crazy. But yeah, I really like it out here. I really like it a lot."

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As you can read in the article about the Holiday Bowl, I talked with the winning quarterback from that game, Robbie Bosco.

Now a fundraiser for BYU, Bosco said he fielded a bunch of phone calls this week from reporters throughout the country.

"Probably my first thought is I am glad my time is over, and I am not playing anymore. We are glad that one is done," he said. "But I think it is going to be awesome. It is going to be really cool to play a game in the Big House and get back to playing a team like Michigan. I think it is going to be a lot of fun for our players, and our fans, and hopefully we can have a good showing out there."

Here are a couple more comments from Bosco I wasn't able to work into the story:

On what pops into his mind about the game itself:

"For us as players, it was a game that helped us separate ourselves from the other great teams we've had at BYU," he said. "When I became a starter, I thought, what can we do to separate ourselves from all the other great players, the great teams, at BYU. I thought, this was the only way to do it.

It wasn't so much winning the national championship, but it was going 13-0, and be the only undefeated team ever at BYU. And to accomplish that, on top of winning the national championship, it is just special to all of us.

You can go all the way down to the players, the coaches, the administration, the fans, everyone feels a part of that season."

On what he remembers about the ankle and knee injuries that made him hobble and limp in between plays:

"It is a good thing now. You know what? The one thing you learn very quickly when you play football and other sports, injuries are a part of the game. Injuries happen all the time, and some are more serious than others. It is one of those things where, if you can still play, and you get the go-ahead to go play, you are going to have 90 percent of the kids out there go play and do the best they can.

So, it brings back a lot of good memories. I remember getting a lot of letters from people who were inspired. I didn't go out there meaning to do that, or anything like that, but it makes you feel good that you went out there (at the time it was more for the team kind of thing), but it is cool that people recognize different performances mean something different in their lives."

On his interactions with Michigan fans throughout the years:

"I have had a handful of fans that were either went to Michigan, or were Michigan fans, and they definitely remember the game for sure. I did an interview with someone that covers Michigan in the Big Ten, and they never knew where BYU was until that '84 game against Michigan. So I remember there was another player that played on that team for Michigan that was on the [Green Bay] Packers with me. And we talked a little bit about that. So yeah, it has happened. It doesn't happen a lot, but I think a lot of people do remember it."