Missionaries coming home

It looks like PWO Jaylen Vickers is back from his mission already. He would have been in New York just shy of a year before being sent home over COVID-19 concerns.


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This could be a situation where when fall comes around there is a crunch with players you didn't expect to the back who are back and trying to win a spot.



https://247sports.com/college/byu/Article/BYU-Defensive-Back-Jaylon-Vickers-Returns-Home-From-Mission-145269725/

Vickers was a preferred walk on during the 2018 season, but he started to emerge as a quality player who was playing consistent reps during the final four games of the season. Now, he will be a red shirt freshman who BYU would certainly like to keep on their roster. BYU is already up against the 85-scholarhship limit and hadn't been planning on Vickers coming home for more than a year, so a 2020 scholarship for him is not something the coaching staff had planned for. He has the talent to get a scholarship somewhere, so if BYU wants to keep him on the roster, they might have to find a way to get creative.

This is going to definitely play some havoc with the roster. Some guys who were expecting scholarships are suddenly going to be facing a number crunch and either have to go PWO or grayshirt.

I'm thinking the offseason scholly crunch will be an interesting discussion. This issue effects BYU uniquely due to missionaries home early over this awful pandemic. Not an issue elsewhere.



I suppose coaches choose who gets it and who doesn't, maybe a blanket policy comes that no early returnee gets a scholarship. A hodge podge of grayshirt, redshirt, and scholarship reallocation will be coming.



I wonder what the volume will be of early returnees prior to fall camp? How big will the crunch be? 10+ 20+?Assuming the world is still standing and we have a season.

I guess this takes us out of the transfer portal game.

Most missionaries (at least the international missionaries) affected by the Coronavirus issue are only coming home to self-isolate for 14 days, and then will be sent out on a temporary reassignment within the US. If they have 180 days (6 months) or less left to serve, they will be released. If they have more, they get reassigned. My understanding is 21 months is the cut-off for missionaries within the US.

Is Vickers facing a different situation?

On a potential scholarship juggle with return missionaries

We have 47 missionaries currently serving and 85 on the team right now. So we know that there are some adjustments that need to be made. Some missionaries, depending on how long they have served already, will be sent out again to maybe more of a local mission in the country, but again we are still working with that. We have asked our recruits and return missionaries to be patient with us. So far, they have been great. We are keeping the line of communications open with them, their families and the assistant coaches. It's always a difficult thing dealing with missionaries and numbers but its nothing that we can't overcome.