Day 9: Nelson shines

BYU held another spirited practice Tuesday morning with plenty of emotion and some hard hitting.
There was a scary moment for the Cougars when true freshman Drew Phillips went down during a kickoff drill. Trainers treated him for several minutes and initially, it looked to be serious. As it turned out, Phillips suffered a quad contusion and X-rays came back negative. He is expected to be fine.
J.J. DiLuigi absorbed a hard hit from linebacker Aveni Leung-Wai after catching a short pass. DiLuigi bounced back up, but coach Bronco Mendenhall flagged Leung-Wai because the defenders are supposed to keep the offensive guys off the ground. Later, wide receiver Luke Ashworth was flagged after taking out two defensive backs — Brian Logan and Steven Thomas — while blocking on a catch-and-run by Cody Hoffman. That negated a long play by Hoffman.
But Mendenhall said he’d rather be “toning (his players) back than driving them forward.”
Like the coach says often this time of year, it’s a tradeoff between getting his players ready for the intensity of a game situation and protecting them from injury.
Quarterback Riley Nelson had one of his better days of fall camp, completing 13-of-21 passes for 149 yards, two touchdowns and one interception (J’ray Galea’i intercepted Nelson on a tipped pass). He also rushed seven times for 63 yards.
Nelson hit Hoffman on a five-yard fade in the back of the end zone for one score and, one final play of practice, he threw a 10-yard TD pass to DiLuigi. That final scoring drive came against the No. 1 defense.
“He throws it well and he’s so mobile. When he’s out there running, he’s tough,” Mendenhall said of Nelson. Asked if there’s a place for Nelson in the offense no matter who is named the starter, Mendenhall replied, “Absolutely. He’s a competitor, he’s a great leader. I love the guy. I think he’s an exceptional player.”
“That’s the objective every time, to go down and score,” Nelson said of his performance. “A lot of guys were making plays and our O-line played well. It wasn’t the smoothest drive, but it would good to see us overcome adversity.”
Nelson also completed a 35-yard pass play to true freshman running back Joshua Quezada, who took a short pass and let his legs do the rest.
Jake Heaps completed 5-of-14 passes for 19 yards, but those numbers are deceiving because, like Monday, he had several players drop passes, particularly tight ends.
“That’s part of it,” Mendenhall said of the drops. “In the evaluation part, that doesn’t affect us. If he throws a ball that’s on the money and they drop it, that’s not his fault.”
As for the spate of dropped passes, Mendenhall said it’s something they’ll keep working on. He said players need to be more mentally focused. “At some point, they wouldn’t be in the mix if they can’t be trusted … Our hope is to go from Harline/Coats to George/Pitta. then what the next two are. I’m not sure what the first few practices looked like after Harline/Coats era, but I don’t think it looked like what it did against Utah last year. That’s my guess.”
There was quite a bit of shakeup at linebacker Tuesday. Strongside linebacker Jordan Pendleton was held out of “live” work again. Jameson Frazier took his spot. “He’s probably had the best camp of anyone so far,” Mendenhall said of Frazier. Kyle Van Noy, playing in place of a banged up Jordan Atkinson, made some heady plays at the other starting outside ‘backer spot and Mendenhall said Van Noy is making improvement.
At the inside linebacker positions, Austen Jorgensen and Leung-Wai ran with the first team. Brandon Ogletree was held out due to a elbow hyperextension. Mendenhall said he’s still experimenting with and looking for the right combination at linebacker.
The Cougars plan to hold a scrimmage Wednesday morning. They will scrimmage again Saturday. Both scrimmages are closed to the public.