Defense makes a statement Friday

Likely, it was the best thing that could have happened in BYU’s spring camp on Friday, the first day of full pads and contact.

The defense came out and slapped around the offense, who’d gone through seven practices as if the sweat on their collective brows was French perfume.

Not Friday. It smelled

As soon as defenders put on pads and started to bull rush from the front seven, the offense chugged to a stop. Completing passes was a tough excercize, albeit many of the pass attempts were from Max Hall’s backups.

While the defense struggled to stop quick Wayne Latu, a third-tier running back on the team, when pass blockers tried to stop Jan Jorgensen and the boys, they got pistol whipped time and time again.

It got so bad, Hall screamed in frustration. He must have had visions of UCLA in the Las Vegas Bowl all over again.

But this was expected. The first day of pads, you expect the defense to use it’s timing and attack mode to disrupt an offense, even one as haughty as this one has shown for two weeks. Once the pressure came, and things fell apart, the football universe at BYU was back to normal.

Surprisingly, the defense up front was as expected but the secondary really was impressive. Utilizing some different formations and schemes under coach Jaime Hill, the secondary threw some road blocks into the way of Hall and Company and made big plays all throughout the short scrimmage. The one big break-down was from freshman safety Jordan Pendleton on the final play of the scrimmage when he floated too close to the line and allowed TE Andrew George to get lost behind him and Hall made him pay with a 79 yard bomb.

This is the best thing that could happen to BYU’s camp. The offense will now get all tense and huffy in meetings and the offensive linemen will be challenged to step it up — and they will. In the meantime, stars like Hall and Austin Collie will have to assert their leadership and kick some butts to get more focus and execution out of the unit that was skipping along on water since the Las Vegas Bowl for some reason.

In defense of Hall and Company, he wasn’t out there that much. Brenden Gaskins and Kurt McEuen were. Also, Harvey Unga was not participating in the scrimmage for safety reasons. Another point, the other day when Mendenhall invited officials to do the game, they were acting like guests and didn’t throw a flag. Mendenhall publicly took not of this, saying he wanted more flag action. He got it Friday when officials kept heaving the hanky about every other play and some of it was ticky tacky stuff and even questionable illegal motion stuff that may not have actually been an infraction. These calls made a lot of plays get called all the way back and that had to frustrate Hall and Anae.

Collie gave reporters a really ear-opening quote afterwards. He said this defense, despite losing Poppinga, Kehl and both starting corners and safeties, was just as good if not better. Really, he said that.

If that is the case, the onus goes back on the offense. They are supposed to be carrying the torch. They’re supposed to be veterans and carry the day.

That didn’t happen the last few days in practice.

Reality bites. Jaime Hill is putting his imprint on the other side of the ball and it looks solid if not inspiring.

This team has a lot of work to do, and it isn’t all on defense.