One-third of BYU’s 2021 spring football practices are in the books, the same number — five sessions — the Cougars got in last year before the pandemic hit and shut everything down.
Head coach Kalani Sitake provided an update Monday night on how camp is going via Zoom, and he was perhaps a little more upbeat than usual. Minutes after Sitake was done, the Nacua brothers — Utah’s Samson and Washington’s Puka — announced on Instagram that they are transferring to BYU.
So there was a reason for that twinkle in Sitake’s eyes.
“I am really excited about what I have seen from the team right now and we will just keep building on this,” Sitake said. “Last year, we were done after practice No. 5, so now we will try to make the next 10 count and get us some good momentum going into the offseason and going into fall camp.”
Getting two Pac-12 receivers in the fold will help; Samson Nacua will be immediately eligible as a graduate transfer, while Puka Nacua will have to sit out a year unless the NCAA soon allows one-time transfers without penalty, as expected.
Asked if BYU was looking to add any more players before the 2021 season begins on Sept. 4 against Arizona in Las Vegas, Sitake gave his usual response — that recruiting never really ends.
“I am always looking to improve our team and get it better,” he said. “There are a lot of guys that fit our program, and we will keep working with that. As long as the (transfer) portal is a thing, we have to check into it and make sure they are a good fit for what we have here at BYU and want to commit to what we are about.”
Getting back to an update on the Cougars, Sitake said a few players are banged up — nothing major — and they are gradually playing more and more real football, like he promised they would last month.
“We have been able to get a lot of 11-on-11 football, and we keep working on that,” he said. “I think we are going to ramp it up more as we go on, especially working towards the tail end of spring ball. Right now we are still in the install phase, trying to get as much as we can in there before we scrimmage and before we go to live work.”
Sitake said he is still hopeful the Cougars can have a spring game; As of now the numbers needed, especially offensive linemen, are good.
Regarding improvement, the coach said there is “a lot of room for that” and it has been happening. He’s more concerned with developing depth, considering the Cougars have a really difficult schedule this season.
“We want to make sure we have more than 11 starters on offense and 11 starters on defense and do a good amount of special teams work as well, so we have got to focus there,” he said. “I see a lot of great development from our players, and you can see the guys who made some sacrifices getting their bodies right and making sure they got bigger and stronger.”
Of course, BYU has four quality candidates to be the starting quarterback and replace Zach Wilson, and Sitake said that competition is as close as expected.
The candidates “all have a high sense of confidence,” Sitake said. “That is because they have worked hard. Now we have this great competition going and you are seeing the best out of them every day.
Their job is to make it really hard on us coaches, as far as who to choose, and so far they are doing a good job at it.”
Sitake said the quarterback competition is inspiring other position players as they compete for their respective spots on the field.
The quarterbacks with the most playing experience, Baylor Romney and Jaren Hall, spoke to reporters last week. Monday, it was freshman Jacob Conover’s turn.
Serving as the scout team QB last fall “was a blast, I enjoyed every moment,” Conover said, “but now it is time to shine and just rock and roll.”
Conover, a former four-star recruit whose mission to Paraguay for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was cut short by the pandemic, called it a “super healthy competition even though everyone wants to be the guy.”
Conover said it took him awhile to shake off the mission rust, but he’s getting there.
“Yeah, a ‘mission body’ is a real thing,” he said, “and it takes about eight months to a year to finally feel 100 percent. I thought I felt good coming back, but there are little, dinky injuries here and there, just normal mission things, but now I feel my body is 100 percent. I have never felt in better shape than I am now. It has been a cool difference to see.”
Equipment director Mick Hill retires
BYU announced Monday night that Mick Hill, the school’s longtime director of equipment operations, is retiring after 39 seasons with the football program.
Only nine football programs in the country registered more wins in Hill’s four-decade run than BYU, which had 334. Hill was on the sidelines for 482 games, “perhaps more BYU football games than any other person in program history,” BYU’s release said.
“It is going to be really hard to say goodbye to Mick,” Sitake said. “He was here when I was a player … Just goes to show the type of people that are around our players and how much of an impact they have on our lives. … We are really thankful for his decades of service. We are going to miss him.”
