Another day of fall camp has come and gone, this week saw a number of players change positions on the defensive side of the ball.
Cross Training on the Defense
After sitting out the first week, Micah Hannemann has returned to practice. Slated to start at Field Corner after spring ball, he was playing free safety at practice today while Kai Nacua saw time at boundary corner. Also, Rhett Sandlin moved from OLB to ILB while Jherremya Leuta-Douyere moved from BLB to WLB. There are a couple reasons that this may be happening, BYU could be cross training players so that that there is more depth at positions in case of injury, preparing in case of possible suspensions, and providing more depth by having players that can fill in in case of injuries. Bronco Mendenhall was asked about this after practice and said, “We have a little more depth at corner than we anticipated so we are cross training Hannemann at both corner and safety. Same thing with Nacua, if we train both of them we have even more depth.”
Depth at Tight End Dwindling
BYU is down to three Tight Ends in camp right now in Bryan Sampson, Theodore King, and Tanner Balderree. Steven Richards is out for the season after suffering a non-contact injury to his right knee during practice on Monday. Steven Richards and Tanner Balderree were moved to Tight End in Spring Ball bringing an added toughness to the offensive side of the ball. The plan was to use them primarily as extra blockers in running formations earning them the nickname, “Bash Brothers.”
Improving the Running Game
During the limited time that media had access to practice, BYU primarily worked on running the ball. This was after the offense was held to 70 yards rushing on Saturdays scrimmage. There were two plays taken to the house at 55 yards each, one from Mitchell Juergens who had motioned out of the slot, and one from Squally Canada (which according to Ben Criddle is up for debate).
The team did a lot of work on running the read-option after only running it during the first one or two series during Saturday’s scrimmage. There was a noticeable change in the OL’s toughness in run blocking which helped benefit the backs tremendously.
Miscellaneous Notes
BYU started two-a-days this week. During the last half hour of today’s practice, the team gathered around and launched water balloons at Coach Wintrich and Coach Mendenhall. The team launched about 50 balloons before hitting Coach Mendenhall very high on the upper right thigh.
Micah Hannemann returned to practice (as mentioned before) during post-practice interviews, Coach Mendenhall said that he was given a clean bill of health by doctors at the Huntsman Institute in Salt Lake but didn’t expound any further.
BYU returns to practice tomorrow with the next media observation being on Thursday.
To get a complete recap of Zak’s observations of fall camp, follow him on Twitter @zakhicken
