Injuries put offense behind
What do Houston Reynolds, Braden Hansen, Braden Brown, and Ryker Mathews all have in common? Well, all four of them were assumed major contributors to the offensive line just prior to last season with three of them ending up with starting roles.
All four of them are out this spring and it’s readily apparent when watching the offense. Running backs can’t get to the edge on sweeps, runs up the middle are getting blown dead before the running backs can even break the line of scrimmage, and Riley Nelson has almost no time in the pocket.
Yes, it’s ugly out there and Nelson will be the first to tell you as much. The assumed starting quarterback isn’t someone to sugar-coat much of anything and he didn’t sugar-coat the Cougar offensive futility following Monday’s practice.
“I look at the guys I finished the season with last year and they’re all out,” said Nelson. “All of the offensive linemen are out and all of the receivers except for one…you kill for the opportunity for reps and get better in spring and you shouldn’t shrink from it, you should rise to the occasion and we need to fix that quick because we don’t have a lot of time left.”
Nelson went 2-6 for a paltry 15 yards and an interception during team drills with running plays being snuffed out again and again. Offensive lines are usually the catalyst for any offensive success and with the top guys out, they’re struggling.
It’s not all their fault, however. They’re going up against a veteran front seven who recently added three-year starter Ian Dulan to the mix. To say it’s a trial-by-fire for these inexperienced OLs would perhaps be an understatement.
The good news is that all of the assumed starters should be back for Fall with the inexperienced underclassmen gaining some valuable practice experience that should add tremendously the overall quality of depth.
While there remains a lot of questions on offense, the defense appears to be answering a lot of them with every practice session.
I’ve blogged about the inside linebackers before, but it’s a position where BYU looks to be strong going six-deep with Brandon Ogletree, Uona Kaveinga, Zac Stout, Tyler Beck, Manoa Pikula and Uani Unga. All of them have shown capable during games or during this spring’s session save for Unga, who proved a lot of his worth last fall.
Alani Fua has stepped up big time filling in for Kyle Van Noy with Spencer Hadley looking like a duck in water at the Sam linebacker spot.
As for the defensive backfield, Preston Hadley has sat out, but coaches know he’s fully capable of manning the boundary corner spot. Daniel Sorensen and Joe Sampson look to be one of the better safety duos BYU has presented with Mike Hague and Jordan Johnson both coming on strong.
Johnson has particularly looked good and has seen all his reps at field corner with the 1s on defense. He had yet another interception today as Riley Nelson attempted a long pass to the corner of the endzone.
It’s likely that we won’t have answers to many of the questions on offense until fall practices. As for the defense, however, it’s becoming apparent with every practice that they’ll be very good and probably improved over what fans saw a year ago.
Do you think that Chanbers will play much at all this year?
It’s hard to think he’ll see much PT this year considering who the team has back in the defensive backfield. I have been impressed with his progress since day one. He had an interception today, in fact.
BYU has gray in their spring practice gear. Is this going to be implemented into the uniforms come fall?
It’s a good question, but I honestly have no idea what they’re uniforms will look like this coming year. I’ll try and find out more on that, but no, I have no clue.
Is there precedent to the number of injuries this spring? I don’t seem to remember anything similar in the recent past. It’s probably hard to judge, but I wonder if it will hurt the team, as they won’t have as many reps together, or if it could help at least a little with depth, as so many young guys are getting more and more practice time.
I can’t ever remember this many injuries during any practice session. Not even anywhere close, to be honest. It’s a problem, no question. At this point last year we were all anticipating a great offensive line. Turns out that the starters missed all of spring and their performance suffered as a result. Will this be the case again this year? No one can say for sure, but it certainly doesn’t help things with them all being out again in spring.
Yes, the young guys have a great opportunity to gain valuable reps, but for the team, as a collective…no way can it be considered as a good thing. It’s very difficult for any team to reach its full potential with more than half the assumed starters missing all of spring practice. Spring practice plays a very important role in the overall development of any football team.
How has Juice and Adam Hine looked so far? How do you see the running back rotation this season?
Wow, it’s really hard to gauge how these RBs are going to do when all of their running plays get blown dead before they get to the line of scrimmage. I do think I’ve seen more pop from Juice, but Hine has been very limited with his reps. I don’t think I have nearly enough to go on to give any prognostication on Hine either way. I do love what I’ve seen from Mike Lasike, however.
*Paul Lasike
Have you noticed any improvement with the GET drills? Has it made a change it the mentality with the offense?
I think it has. The offense looks much more aggressive this spring. They came out with a lot of fire and energy, and I attribute a lot of that to Riley Nelson. It’s really a shame that so many players are out on offense as they simply don’t have the personnel to compete well with the first-team defense in a scrimmage situation currently.
With the OL playing with less experience, how do the fullbacks look in run blocking and blitz pick-up duties?
That’s a great question. Coaches love Iona Pritchard’s ability to pick up blitzes and he usually fares well in practices. Pritchard can only pick up one rusher, however, and there is almost always more than one rusher getting through the line on most passing plays.
So it sounds like the starters on the corners will be Johnson and Hadley with Sorenson locking up one of the safety positions. Who do you anticipate will win the other starting safety position, Sampson or Hague?
Also, if you had to guess, who do you think will be the starting five offensive lineman when the Cougars take the field agains Washington State this fall?
I simply can’t see how coaches keep Sampson off the field. I do anticipate him starting at free safety and switching to Kat safety when BYU goes nickel. Hague will play at free in the nickel formation which could prove to be the best formation for the defense, as a whole.
Mathews-Hansen-Reynolds-Stringham-Brown is my best guess.
All things considered, how are the back up QB’s looking? Maybe this is difficult to answer, but any insight to what you are seeing is great.
Taysom Hill has the best arm of any of the QBs. He can really gun it downfield, but overthrows a lot of guys. He’ll settle down..haven’t seen him all that much in the open field, but when he does scramble, it’s impressive.
I really like what I’ve seen from Ammon Olsen so far. He had another good practice today and seems to be able to move the offense whenever he’s in there. Granted that I’ve yet to see him go against the first-team defense.
There is much criticism of the strength program because of the rash of injuries, particularly all the OL who have had a torn labrum. So two things, which of the all the injuries could be weakness related? Second, there are 3-4 different types of labrum injury – is there a pattern to these injuries by position?
It’s a very good question regarding injuries, but I really don’t feel qualified to answer the questions you have. It’s a question we posed to Bronco early with him saying it was pretty much just an awful coincidence.
I noticed there were some more new injuries today. I remeber 2-3 years ago we had an unusually high number of injuries in Spring and Fall camp as well. Do you think there is particular reason for this happening due to type of practice, drills, etc? Or just bad luck?
It’s a very sensitive topic regarding injuries. Coaches and players are almost always close-lipped when it comes to injury issues, so I doubt we’ll get the real story, assuming there is one beyond just an awful string of bad luck.
Have you seen much of Marcus Johnson?
Marques Johnson hasn’t seen a lot of reps and has been, yes, banged up a big according to coaches. He looks to have a ways to go…doesn’t jump out at you in practice like Fangupo did a year ago.
Are there any rumblings to the off season workouts aggravating these injuries?
There’s always rumblings from fans regarding offseason workouts. Again, I don’t feel qualified to answer any of these injury questions.
What does the D-Line rotaion look like?
Dulan-Fuga-Manumaleuna are definitely the top guys. Muehlmann and Vea are the next two guys in. The depth gets a lot better when Russell Tialavea gets healthy, assuming he returns to form. I anticipate a lot of two-man fronts again this season. They have been playing Ziggy a lot at defensive tackle here of late.
With current personel, a 2-4-5 would make a lot of sense, especially against teams with strong passing tendencies though I wouldn’t be surprised to see it used at other times as well. The Cougar D line is not very deep. The starters all appear solid, but after that there is a severe drop off. I like Vea and Muehlmann, but unless they have gotten a lot better when I wasn’t looking (which they very well may have), they aren’t necesarily guys I want to see a lot of downs if you can help it. If one or more of the starters gets injured, I wouldn’t be surprised see the 2-4-5 potentially compete to be the base defense.
What about Jordan Richardon? Is he among the injured? He proved functional 2 years ago.
What are your thoughts about the impact of Bronson Kaufusi? What kind of shape (both literally and athletically) do you think he will be in?
He is still sited by news articles as being 220lbs. If, as a Tongan serving for 2 years in New Zealand, Kaufusi weighs only 220 lbs I’ll eat my hat. Literally.
My geuss is that he’ll be 250+ and could well see playing time this year in a back up capacity. I don’t think he will be physicaly and mentally ready to take a larger role than that, but with his natural abilities, I think fall practice will be enough toget him into the 2 deep.
Richardson is injured, I believe…need to check on that. I think Bronson is a tremendous prospect, but considering he doesn’t get home until July, I find it hard to expect much from him this season.
What’s the rationale for Chambers’ switch to DB? I realize there was a lack of chemistry with Heaps, but Heaps is gone. Chambers was a solid wideout, and he’s served his penance. Why not allow him to return to his natural position. Is this simply Bronco having dug his heels in?
I think Bronco really wants the opportunity to coach him up and Chambers seems more than willing to do it. If the tight ends continue to go down with injury like they are then he might be best served to switch back. Chambers showed some talent at WR, and could help in the rotation…does seem as if he could contribute more at WR than at DB from my perspective.
What about moving spring ball to later in the year?? It seems like alot of players have injuries from the season and just aren’t healed up yet
The timing for spring ball has a lot to do with academics. After the conclusion of spring practice, athletes have a week and a half before finals begin.
Most schools start there winter semester later than BYU and give their students a spring break. The result is that they are in school for up to a month later than BYU. This allows for them to start their spring practices later in the year.