Folks in Rockies stuck on age of BYU players

It’s almost comical these days how the age of BYU players surfaces in the Denver area media when the Cougars win.

We didn’t hear it back in 2002 through 2005. I can’t remember a time during that ugly BYU football period when it was a question at a press conference or a topic emphasized by a coach in the league.

But in the course of two days this week, probably the same reporter, it was asked of both Bronco Mendenhall and AFA coach Troy Calhoun in two separate press conferences.

Is having older players a big advantage?

Well, yeah, it could be, if they’re pretty good athletes, mature and they are probably linemen who could use the time to fill out.

But if it’s a great advantage, I don’t see USC or Michigan sending out recruits as volunteers for civil or religious service for two years. In fact, Ty Willingham, the former Notre Dame and Washington coach has told LDS recruits he would not sign them if they left for two years.

Mendenhall explained the two-years turns into a three-year recovery, often with another six months added on that to return back in mental and physical shape to be competitive.

Mendenhall has backed off his training of returned missionaries because when he first took over, he actually practically killed them in an effort to get them tough. Stuff like 32 100-yard dashes or gassers and other endurance tests. After players like DB Nate Hutchinson got seriously injured right off a mission, Mendenhall backed down, he could not sustain such activity with the RMs.

I was there that day when Hutchison was just doing a drill and his knee cap went sideways. He had to have his leg practically cut in half and repaired with a metal rod and he has undergone several surgeries and had to quit football. Other RMs have had stress fractures, bulging disks in their backs, torn hamstrings and quad and groin pulls. Center Tom Sorensen has never fully got back to football after a series of injuries since he played at Vanderbilt and returned to BYU.

Mendenhall now has a separate conditioning program for players who have been gone two years. He brings them back slowly with less intensity, to reduce the shock to the body and avoid injury.

Nobody in Colorado wants to examine how Chuck Cutler came back from South America with parasites, how MWC discus champion Amy Curtis developed serious foot issues from tracting in South America and had to return home and never competed again. Hoop guard Nate Call was nearly burned to death in an accident. You could go on and on. In fact, somebody ought to collect stories about athletes on missions and what they go through. How many were mugged or shot at in Bolivia, Columbia or Ireland, South Africa or Brazil?

Anyway, Mendenhall explained that it isn’t easy coming back and the turnover in his program is something no other team in the country does. Utah comes close. That turnover is a challenge. BYU will lose kicker Justin Sorensen, linebacker Iona Pritchard, linebacker Daniel Sorensen, and possibly LD Spencer Hadley and others to missions after this season. Some are the building blocks for the future on defense.

On Calhoun’s weekly press conference, he was asked if BYU’s older players was an advantage. He said it could be when some of his players were in middle school when some of BYU’s players first came to college to play. He was then asked how many married players he has and he replied none. There was a lot of laughter in the room.

It’s an intersting phenomenon in Denver. The media and coaches for 30 years have been obsessed with age of BYU players, although they don’t stop to mention that Lee Cummard and Max Hall were not gone for two years, Trent Plaisted didn’t serve a mission and neither did players like Harvey Unga and Ray Feinga or Michael Reed.

It all started in the late 70s when LaVell Edwards started winning titles and CSU, Wyoming and AFA began to take a back seat. It was unacceptable that BYU had something going, a scheme, a system, a passing offense that was innovative and tough to defend. It was unacceptable that somehow this religious school had jumped ahead of the mighty Colorado Buffs in national attention. It was unacceptable that perhaps coaches at CU, CSU, AFA and Wyoming were not getting the job done.

It had to be an unfair practice, an advantage of sorts and the secret recipe had to be something like the age and maturity of BYU players.

You might remember the SI article in 2001 when the Cougars were 12-0. It was written by the talented Rick Riley. He made fun and blasted BYU for the age of players. Doug Looney, another SI writer has also brought up the issue. Both are graduates of Colorado and lived in Boulder.

Win envy in Denver.

It is very interesting. This has been a baton tossed around for years in the Denver area. Occasionally it bleeds over to Albuquerque and San Diego, but it is an absolute fixation in the Rockies.

Funny thing is, if AFA whips the Cougars on Saturday, nobody will utter a word about blocking a 25-year old with a kid.