2011 BYU football.

Have a few questions about next years team. Who are we going to have to replace? I don't really know what year a lot of these guys are and don't want to look all of them up. A little help please.



Defense has looked awesome this year. Who is leaving?

Dline?

Linebackers?

DBs?

Safeties?



Offense; Most are coming back. Right?

QB-check

Oline-???

RBs? is Kariya a Sr, we'll miss his versatility, dependability and hard running if he's gone next year.

WRs?

TE- is there anyone NOT coming back?



Thanks for any info. Most wondering about the defense. If most of them are coming back, Next year could be special.

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Andrew Rich

Brian Logan

Vic So'oto



losing those three hurts

I'm not worried about LB, OL or WR

Reynolds may leave early and I think there may be a senior on O/L. Kariya and JJ are juniors iirc. THe tight ends are all freshmen. There is a senior or two WR, Ashworth and Peterson come to mind.



OL might be a bit of a rebuild. WR should improve. TE should improve. RB should improve. QB should be a huge improvement because - worst case it will start as good as we finish this year and there is no reason for it to be as horrible as it started this year.



The schedule will be th ebiggest issue next year.



And I hope nobody gets booted for misbehavior. That killed us this year.

Brandon Bradley has been serviceable as well. Probably played out of position his entire career at BYU, but they didn't really have anyone better to play at CB so he could move to safety. Eason is the closest they've come to having anyone, but they are about the same player, and thus the senior gets the start (not saying I agree with it, seeing as how he would be an upgrade to both Thomas and Uale at safety, and Eason would have the same production). Eason, Buckner and Everett to name a few will have the opportunity to play next year. If Riley Nelson is serious about actually playing in games, he needs to switch positions, and he would be an excellent free safety. Need to replace Rich on the strong side. This will be the most important battle in spring camp. Jordan Pendleton anyone?



Kaveinga steps in for Hunter, and as well as Hunter has played and his effort is amazing, Kaveinga is an upgrade talent wise. Also, the entire 2nd string two years ago were true freshman who all got plenty of playing time and all went on missions and will be back. I believe they all played at the same time on the field as well.



None of the starters on OL are seniors. Lose some depth, but others will be back from missions.



Bryson, if he doesn't serve a mission will fight for a DE spot. He made a great play in pass coverage as a defensive ends that we wish most of our linebackers could make earlier in the year. Fua also will not be going on a mission since he got married, and he will be a force as well. He was the best player on the field during that HS game where Stout and Fua played against Heaps, and I'm really excited to see him on the field.



I thought Kariya was a junior, but if he is a senior, then JJ, Q, Hague, and Phillips will be able to cover it, and that's just the players that are already on the team this year.



Apo, Jacobson, Hoffman, Phillips (here as well), others. WR has the potential to actually be outstanding for the next few years.



Not only are all the TE's coming back, we get a couple more off of missions that may actually be better than the ones we have on the roster now.

Personally, if Riley switches positions, I;d like to see him try his hand at WR. Many talented college Qbs have switched to WR and made it work. Some even made the NFl after the switch. Riley might be a good safety, but I suspect he could be an even better WR because I like his feistyness and think he could make plays in the open field.

I really like the idea of Riley in the slot.



What leads people to think Riley, a QB, would be such a good safety?

runbyu1 wrote:
I really like the idea of Riley in the slot.



What leads people to think Riley, a QB, would be such a good safety?

He's quick, fast, speedy, agile, double-quick, swift, fleet-footed, rapid, has wheels, and is athletic.



In all seriousness, a fast, athletic safety who knows how quarterbacks think and how quarterbacks are taught to manipulate safeties is invaluable. Tony Dungy, my favorite coach as you may know, made the switch when he went to the NFL from QB to safety and had good success playing on some of the best defenses in the league.

Schmoe wrote:

I really like the idea of Riley in the slot.



What leads people to think Riley, a QB, would be such a good safety?

He's quick, fast, speedy, agile, double-quick, swift, fleet-footed, rapid, has wheels, and is athletic.



In all seriousness, a fast, athletic safety who knows how quarterbacks think and how quarterbacks are taught to manipulate safeties is invaluable. Tony Dungy, my favorite coach as you may know, made the switch when he went to the NFL from QB to safety and had good success playing on some of the best defenses in the league.

I don't think nelson is very fast personally. I would like to see him come back as quarterback but only as a situational qb like when we are in the red zone. I think florida's leak/tebow system worked well and its a nice luxury to have someone like nelson to use in a situation like that.

Yes, Nelson to the slot, he needs to become a WR



There is one senior on the Oline (Speredon, Aletto is also a senior). I don't believe Reynolds goes early, he kind of stunk it up this year, and if he wants good money in the NFL, he needs to stay another year and excel.



The entire backfield returns, Falsev returns, Phillips will be playing, and Apo.



We will be a better team next year, no doubt. All these freshmen and sophomores have a year of valuable experience, and their true talent will begin to emerge. We are already seeing Quezada emerge, and did you see Bronco's amazing assessment of this player? Heaps had the misfortune of having a receiving corps that was not as good as his high school receivers (apparently), but everybody seems to be improving, and I'm excited to see what Apo can do.



I think we lose more defensively than offensively, as other posters have noted., but with Bronco at the helm, he'll get the most out of them possible.

bball wrote:
Yes, Nelson to the slot, he needs to become a WR



There is one senior on the Oline (Speredon, Aletto is also a senior). I don't believe Reynolds goes early, he kind of stunk it up this year, and if he wants good money in the NFL, he needs to stay another year and excel.



The entire backfield returns, Falsev returns, Phillips will be playing, and Apo.



We will be a better team next year, no doubt. All these freshmen and sophomores have a year of valuable experience, and their true talent will begin to emerge. We are already seeing Quezada emerge, and did you see Bronco's amazing assessment of this player? Heaps had the misfortune of having a receiving corps that was not as good as his high school receivers (apparently), but everybody seems to be improving, and I'm excited to see what Apo can do.



I think we lose more defensively than offensively, as other posters have noted., but with Bronco at the helm, he'll get the most out of them possible.

Normally I would disagree with you on Reynolds leaving early, because we have seen it is not what you actually do in college that gets you drafted, its what the scouts think you can do based on all the measureables. If he were to stay at BYU, any other year but this one, it would be simply because he wants to.



This year is different. Next year there may not be any professional football played. There won't be a collective bargaining agreement. There is just too much uncertainty (just like in the NBA, which for money reasons is a reason why it was dumb for Jimmer to stay in school and not go, but that's a different story). We'll actually see a lot of the underclassmen that would probably declare early for the draft stay in school for one more year. It's also the reason why a lot of people that were marginal last year left early. And just another reason why Jake Locker is either really dumb or really, really likes college. He's thrown money away in two sports this last year.

It's wasn't dumb for Jimmer to come back. He didn't get a 1st round guarantee. If Reynolds is a 1st or 2nd round guarantee and still comes back then it's because he doesn't really want to play football professionally.

Schmoe,



I agree Riley could play safety, and he did in High school, I beleive. So he has some experience with that. I just think he could be a REALLY good slot guy for us. Really good. I think he has the intangibles there to make it, and the kid will not be afraid to run over the middle. Looking at where the needs are next year, I think slot guy might be it more too. He is great in the open field, so love to see him make plays down field for us.

I agree, I think he'll be successful wherever he ends up on the field, athletes usually do. I was just saying how a QB can make a successful safety (because they are familiar with passing schemes, routes, timing, etc.), not necessarily that it would be the best position for him.

I'm not sure Riley could do very well as a receiver since he only has the one year to learn how to catch Heaps' throws. We've seen experienced receivers struggle all year because of heaps so I doubt Riley could do any better.





Tic



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Rumor has it that Heaps is spending more time working with his receivers - and if Heaps continues with the precision he showed last week, which was not flawless, but much, much improved, the receivers will be catching a higher percentage of passes and everything will work better.



TIC

jonnylingo wrote:
I don't think nelson is very fast personally.

This.



Especially not compared to our slot guys. Falslev is one of the fastest on the team. Marshall was a former QB, but has been playing at that position for two years now.

If Riley makes a good safety and a decent slot receiver, why couldn't he do both? Full time safety, part-time in the slot? I mean, that's where we are thinking about putting Phillips, right? No need for Riley to start over Drew there. But when Drew needs a breather, put Riley in. You could do play action off the fly sweep with him in motion, give it to him and still have a run-pass option, or just have him out there in the pattern. You go vanilla with him there for the first 3-4 games in the season. Throw it to him a few times, maybe give it to him a couple times on a sweep or off-tackle play, do some play action off that, etc. Against your first weak opponent, run the run-pass option version successfully one time. Then, for the rest of the season, anytime you have him in the formation and in motion towards the QB, they have to worry about run, pass, play-action pass, and run-pass option.



THEN (assuming Anae is fired and replaced with Crowton or something similarly insane), we throw in a formation like the above with Drew Phillips in for Heaps. (He did run plenty of wildcat in high school, by the way.) On the snap, Phillips takes the ball and sprints the opposite direction as Nelson is coming from his motion. He can keep it, give it to Nelson as in the above scenario and continue out on a circle or fly route, or even throw it if he feels like. There's NO WAY it can possibly fail! ;)



(Apologies to the TIC-challenged. I'm not sure how much of this is TIC yet. Probably most of the second paragraph. Then again... Yeah, not sure. :D )