Poppinga's perspective

Last week I interviewed former BYU star, and current Green Bay Packer, Brady Poppinga and wrote a story about his upcoming football camp on July 18 at BYU. He and his brothers, as well as Bryan Kehl and several current players, are organizing and participating in this camp to share their knowledge about football and to raise money for a Utah County girl battling a serious illness.

Poppinga told me some things that I couldn’t fit into the article but were interesting. I asked him what he thought about the current state of BYU’s program. Remember, he played on losing teams in three of his four years as a Cougar and he finished his career just before Bronco Mendenhall was hired.

Poppinga said after Mendenhall was promoted to lead the program, Mendenhall organized a banquet for the outgoing seniors. Mendenhall also invited former players to come.

Said Poppinga: “I got to speak and I made a proclamation that under Coach Mendenhall, this program would accomplish things that had never been accomplished at BYU before. People laughed when I said that. But I knew Coach Mendenhall and who he is because I played for him. I knew that he would develop a program that would be tough to beat and we see that now. His competitive spirit is unmatched and he teaches his players to play with a physical mindset that is unmatched. Now we’ve seen what they’ve done the past couple of seasons. BYU’s on top again. I can’t say I knew it would happen like this, but I hoped it would happen.”

He added that it’s fun to be in a NFL locker room and be a BYU alum these days. NFL players are still fiercely loyal to their schools and there’s a lot of bragging rights and trash-talking when they chat about their alma maters. On Saturdays during the season, NFL players talk a lot about their former teams, watch all the college teams on TV and make friendly wagers on the outcomes. Unlike a few years ago when he joined the league, there’s respect for BYU among NFL players, he said.