Fall camp: Plagued by inconsistency

BYU held the first of two practices on Monday morning. The first one was open to the media, the second one, tonight, is closed.
What stood out this morning is that the Cougar offense is very, very good inside what BYU coaches call the “blue” zone, or inside the 25-yard line. However, getting that deep into the opponent’s territory could prove to be difficult as the Cougars are struggling on third downs. A year ago, BYU led the nation in third-down conversions, but to this point, that has been a weakness of this offense.
Quarterbacks coach Brandon Doman said after practice that while he’s happy with where the quarterbacks — Riley Nelson and Jake Heaps — are, “there are a lot of expectations right now for them. We’re not meeting those expectations yet. We see glimpses of great things. But the consistency, down-in and down-out, to move the chains … Riley will make a nice run or Jake will throw a nice deep ball to McKay (Jacobson) and everyone will get excited. The reality of the situation is, we’re not getting enough first downs. Which means third-down conversions. I think we’ll be great once we get down into the scoring area. But we’ve got to get there. Right now, we’re not consistent enough. We have these two guys battling it out for the job, Riley and Jake, and we’ve still got 20 practices. We need every single one of them to be ready to go.”
The Cougar offense suffered from a spate of dropped passes on Monday, particularly by tight ends, which killed a couple of drives. “It’s not that they’re not capable,” said coach Bronco Mendenhall. “Hopefully we’ll learn from it.”
Inside the 25, Nelson was 2-for-2 for 21 yards and a 10-yard touchdown pass to Cody Hoffman. Heaps was 2-for-3 for 43 yards and two TDs (a 22-yard to Richard Wilson and a 9-yarder to O’Neill Chambers).
Outside of the “blue” zone, Nelson was 2-of-6 for 18 yards while Heaps was 4-for-11 for 36 yards. Again, there were some drops that weren’t necessarily the quarterbacks’ fault.
One of the highlights for the offense was a 20-yard reception by wide receiver Rhen Brown from Heaps.
Mendenhall said both the offense and defense had bright spots, saying the offense “looked as sharp as they’ve ever been in this camp” in the “blue” zone. He pointed out the offense scored six of seven possessions inside the 25, “which was really encouraging.”
Added Mendenhall: “The second team period, the defense was just as dominant the other way. I’m not sure they allowed one or two first downs. What that simply reflects is still inconsistency (and youth).”
Asked about the position battles at linebacker, tight end and quarterback, Mendenhall said, “I couldn’t tell you a thing different from what I said last week. There is no one that is emerging clearly at any of those spots for us to say, ‘That’s our guy.’”
Mendenhall reiterated that he could wait until game week to name a starting quarterback, adding that one has to clearly emerge for him to name a starter before then.
Today the Cougars were doing some cross-training and experimenting with various combinations. Safety Jray Galea’i and junior Corby Eason saw time with the first-team defense. Mendenhall said he and the coaching staff want to “solidify who’s going to be playing with whom.”
Linebacker Jordan Pendleton saw “live” action today and made plenty of plays. He’s been sitting out of “live” work to protect his shoulder. He had surgery on his shoulder during the off-season.
“It was fun having him out there,” Mendenhall said of Pendleton. “He makes a difference, obviously. He did a really nice job.”
One of the emerging concerns is at backup placekicker. Riley Stephenson, who’s subbing for the injured Mitch Payne, had a couple more PATs blocked Monday. Stephenson has missed 7 of 12 PATs in live drills since camp opened.
Mendenhall is concerned enough about it that he’s going to be asking in a team meeting who kicked PATs in high school. “Seriously,” Mendenhall said. “You never know, we might have someone that can kick an extra point consistently. (Riley) is great with kickoffs and he’s an excellent punter, but when you see that many (PATs) go into someone’s back, it’s time to get it fixed … It’s no reason to panic, but I’m glad we found out now that we have that much work to do with a backup kicker than game five or six.”
Mendenhall said that during a team meeting, he had all of the newcomers come up to learn the school fight song, “Rise and Shout.”
“Three-quarters of the room came to the front,” the coach said. “It’s amazing that we have that many young players. But it’s fun and I think we have a chance to have a good team.”
BYU has a scrimmage planned for Saturday. The Cougars could hold another one midweek, Mendenhall said.