Bring on the practice noise

It came late, but once it got to the practice field, it delivered its purpose: noise, distraction and a challenge to focus.

We’re talking about a set of speakers blaring crowd noise during BYU’s Wednesday afternoon practice session when the squad went 11 on 11. It’s a ploy used by Gary Crowton and continued into the Bronco Mendenhall era.

Funny thing, once the noise started, the Cougars offense actually executed at a higher level.

How?

Austin Collie might be one of the best receivers I’ve seen at BYU and I don’t know if he’s fully recovered form his summer injury (stress fracture). But before the noise was staged, he dropped two passes and fumbled a kickoff return catch that bounced off his shoulder pads and out of his hands as he tried to make a running catch. Angry with his self, he chucked the ball down field as hard as he could.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Collie mishandle that many balls in a practice, he’s usually so competitive, focused and driven that he eats it up to make those kinds of plays. Having said that, he did make some great catches on some curls, drag routes and posts.

“I thought our practice was a little sloppy,” said Mendenhall. He believes part of it was due to players being back in school the past few days. “It usually affects some players.”

Max Hall connected with a nice bomb to Spencer Hafoka and threw an interception to Tana Uyema. Brenden Gaskins had a nice bomb to Luke Ashworth but he was also picked off by Cameron Comer. Dennis Pitta continued to make big catches all afternoon in front of some visiting NFL scouts attending practice.

Hall said this week Collie struggled for part of the Northern Iowa game. “It wasn’t a matter of timing, that had nothing to do with it. We just weren’t on the same page on a couple of plays, we didn’t see the same thing, make the same read.”

Mendenhall said his team is healthy for Washington. While safety Andrew Rich is wearing a cast on his hands due to a broken bone in his hand (Monday’s practice), he said the cast is not corrective but protective and he will be available for the Washington game.