After spending Wednesday morning at the movies and floating the river, the team returned to another day of practice:
Mitch Mathews Returns
Mitch Mathews was held out of the first week of practice after getting surgery on an inguinal hernia before fall camp. Mathews was slowly integrated in this week and showed up very well today. During 7-on-7 drills, he caught a TD pass from Taysom and also had another impressive catch that went for about 20 yds.
Mitch is slowly being worked in more and more everyday in preparation for Nebraska. He said that he feels like he’s 100% but wants to make sure that he doesn’t rush his way back in.
More Shake Ups in the Secondary
BYU has seen a number of shake ups in the secondary over this week as they are cross training several players to learn different positions in the defense. Today, the first unit secondary saw Micah Hannemann at FC, Matt Hadley at KAT Safety, Jordan Preator at FS, and Mike Davis at BC. Micah Hannemann was held out last week after concerns that he may have had a cancerous growth in his knee, but has quickly worked his way into the first unit secondary at both corner and safety. Hannemann addressed the media today and spoke on that, “I feel like I had a good spring so I was disappointed that I was held out the first week of fall camp and I feel like I’m playing catch up. I feel more comfortable mentally at corner, but feel like I’m a better fit physically at safety.”
Big Praise of JLD
Jherremya Leuta-Douyerre made the move from Buck LB to Will LB earlier this week and has quickly turned heads. OLB Coach Kelly Poppinga addressed the media today and said, “I’ve been impressed with JLD, over the last 3 days his execution has been at 100%, typically in a game we expect our players to execute at 80%.”
Miscellaneous Notes
BYU went and saw Fantastic 4 yesterday, Terren Houk and Kelly Poppinga both reviewed the film saying that they would not recommend it to anyone. Poppinga added that he fell asleep during the last 20 minutes of the movie. Bronco skipped out on the movie and went on a date with his wife.
There were 4 TDs thrown during 7-on-7 drills. Taysom threw 3 to Mitch Mathews, Mitch Juergens, and Nick Kurtz. Tanner Mangum added a TD to David Kessler on the first play of his drive.
Kyle Johnson and Tuni Kanuch were held out of today’s practice, the first unit OL saw Ryker Mathews at LT, Parker Dawe at LG, Tejan Koroma at C, Ului Lapuaho at RG, and Brad Wilcox at RT.
A number of players that stood out were RB’s Adam Hine who ran very physical today and Francis Bernard who started with the first team at FB. On the defensive side of the ball, Kai Nacua, Manoa Pikula, Micah Hannemann, and Michael Shelton who forced PBUs.
The play of the day was a 40 yd pass from Taysom Hill to Mitchell Juergens. Nate Carter also had a 20 yd run on a draw play.
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