By Christopher Ashton
With the return of the football team to the practice field, the battle for starting positions is getting hot, and every man on the roster is fighting to grab the attention of the coaches.
“It”s just all about who wants it more,” said senior wide receiver Jason Kukahiko.
It appears that everyone who steps onto the field and wears the Cougar blue and white wants it, but it goes much deeper than that. As players take part in drills, such as bag drills, one-on-ones, up-downs, form tackling a dummy and pursuit drills [sprinting after a ball carrier while trying to take the proper angle of pursuit and then hustling off of the field so the next group can start all over again], many of these players are just hoping the coaches will learn their names.
As cornerback”s coach Brian Mitchell watched this drill, he yelled assignments and encouragement to his players while referring to them only by their jersey number.
For those players, the battle wages on.
On the other side of the practice field, linebacker”s coach Barry Lamb sat in a golf cart while working with his players on the proper technique of taking on a blocker. Coach Lamb sat because earlier this year he broke his leg while hiking to Machu Picchu in Peru.
Still, his players gave special attention to his words in hopes that that”s what it would take to get noticed by their position coach. At least he referred to his players by their names.
With spring practice comes the steep learning curve demanded by every position coach, and with this learning curve comes mistakes — something the coaches accept fewer of as time rolls on. Whether it was fumbling the football, a missed assignment, a dropped a pass, a bad snap, a poor throw, bad technique, etc., the coaches made it clear that significant improvement is necessary in order to gain a spot with the first team.
This is the process of improving on a 4-8 season — the second losing season in Provo during the Gary Crowton era.
“We just don”t want last year to ever come again,” Kukahiko said. “That”s just not acceptable for BYU football and we”re determined to go out there and make plays and prove that BYU football is BYU football like it has been in the past.”
This having been said, not only do the players want the coaches to notice them, but also the coaches would like someone at every position to step up and make it easy to be noticed by coach Crowton and his staff.
Referring specifically to the quarterback position, coach Crowton said, “I chart everything, and I write it all down, everything from their reads to their completion percentage, interceptions, big plays, all those things. [The early focus is] getting the ball off to the right guy at the right time.”
With spring practice only a week old and the ongoing player evaluation process in full swing, coach Crowton is not prepared to jump the gun and name his starter for the coveted BYU quarterback position.
“Right now, I”ve made no decisions on who”s the starter at all,” Crowton said. “I don”t think they”re ready for that.”
Ready or not, it”s football season, spring practice style.
