Speaker 1: What's going on in the world of Cougar athletics.
Speaker 2: Here from players, coaches, and experts on all the latest
happenings with the Cougars.
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being the fan.
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That's right, love talking BYU Football. That's what we're gonna
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your chrome deletes. Let's get into some BAU football talk.
We had Jared bledshoe former BA wide receiver Jared, How
the heck are.
Speaker 1: You, buddy?
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 2: And thanks for having me, Always a pleasure talking ball
with you.
Speaker 1: Number one.
Speaker 2: Everything good in your world? How's the fam? How are
the kiddos? How's everything going?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're doing great, great, Ready for the summer. We're
done with the winter already. Yeah, so we had to
throw a book a quick trip to Hawaii coming up
soon so that we can get some warmth and some
sun and some surf.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it'll be a lot of fun.
Speaker 4: You going, You always go stayckoo for sure?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Where do you? What do you stay? Family? Friends, Airbnb?
Speaker 3: A lot of friends.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: And then we've got an airbnb that we stay at
with a with a family friend and and uh yeah,
just get some waves and and enjoy.
Speaker 3: Some warm water and some warm weather.
Speaker 1: When are you going, April nice?
Speaker 2: I'm jelly, my friend. Uh, well, we appreciate you showing up,
showing out today. Look, new acquisitions, new coaching staff hires.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw. So let's let's delve
into this.
Speaker 2: Let's talk to defense for a moment, because, uh, you know,
there are some key acquisitions and regard Lewis Clark cornerbacks coach. Obviously,
tomorrow Warren is gonna be the passing and corning He's
gonna move over to the safeties room. Kelyn Pepina, your
defense coordinator and inside linebackers coach. Justin that are gonna
be slowly focused on the special team. So I canna
be coaching in a position he'll gonna be. And and
you know why is that? Well, he's gonna be focused
on the whole team, right, You're gonna be focused on
the whole team.
Speaker 1: Gonna be interesting there. You get your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2: You got toany Puha's gonna be coaching up the defensive line,
Chad k Chad Kahaha. He's gonna be coaching up the
outside edges and the outside linebackers. Pretty good coaching staff
right there with your position groups, your thoughts, your commentary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I'm excited about it.
Speaker 4: I think they did a good job of bringing in
the right people and keeping the right people as well.
And I think that they It's interesting though, to see
how many coaches now function within a team, you know,
inside linebacker coach, outside linebacker coach. You know, it's interesting
to me And and and with Justin.
Speaker 1: Cary Anderson's senior analyst overseeing some of that too.
Speaker 4: And typically, at least from what I've I've always been
aware of when your special teams coordinator typically was a
position coach as well. So it is a different things.
When I first heard that Justin that was his sole position,
I thought, well, time to shine, right, you know, like,
this is your sole focus is special teams, that that
probably should result in some pretty good special team plays
and an opportunity to really focus on that piece of
the game and hopefully it turns into a real successful
special team with Spenter next year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I'm looking at the staff right now
with even like your analysts, You're looking at you know,
defensive assistants, et cetera. Remember Randy Coy defensive assistant, he's
been with the squad for a long time. Wesley Johnson
defensive graduate assistant coach. Wesley Johnson, that's the brother Evan Johnson. Yeah,
so he's there still still coaching up And I think
that was a nice pivotal.
Speaker 4: I was kind of hoping they might for him a position.
I think Wes is a great guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do too. I really like his vibe I
like Western's vibe a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, He's is a good person to be around. He
has good energy. The players like him, and so I'm
still optimistic that they'll bring him in and give him
a little bit more responsibility other than just a GA role.
Speaker 2: He started his career Stevenson School offense coordinator and wide
receivers coach twenty eighteen to twenty nineteen. Came on to
Arizona State's recruiting assistant job from twenty nineteen twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: I think that was under HERM.
Speaker 2: Edwards, if I'm not mistaken, Arizona State defensive assistant with
linebackers twenty twenty one to twenty twenty three, and then
he came over as a BYU graduate assistant for the
cornerbacks in twenty twenty three, and then moved over with
the linebackers in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: So he was working with with Justin Ena and so.
Speaker 2: I think, now, cool thing is I think he's with
cornerbacks in twenty twenty six, so he's okay, Yeah, so
he's going to be with the cornerback.
Speaker 1: With Lewis Clark.
Speaker 3: Yeah cool, yeah nice? Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, So they haven't and then you know, you
look at you know, the offensive side of the ball
now and Tyler Hughes.
Speaker 1: Very interesting.
Speaker 2: Okay, NFL experience is we've been in New England Patriots
and most recently with Alabama. We were discussing the quarterback factory.
A runs dide a tremendous job in the monte era
since he came in twenty eighteen. Yeah, look at all
the quarterbacks he's brought in and look at who's developed.
And he gives credit to obviously the other supporting cast,
but you got to give a lot of credit to
a Ron.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and especially in the recruiting side of it, because
we're getting the guys that that we want here and
and they're staying. They're not transferred out, they want they
want to work with Aron. So that's an exciting thing
to see happening. And yeah, I'm really excited to see
what they put together this spring.
Speaker 2: Tyler Hughes is a nice acquisition that replaces Matt Mitchell.
Matt Mitchell was a great coach. Matt Mitchell helped with
the the accelerated install of the offense with Bear Bachmeyer.
You know, much of the retention you know, you got
to you know, the ability to retain information is bears
and negative ability to learn.
Speaker 1: But you need a good coach, you need a good mentor.
Speaker 2: You need to be feeding him the right information and
getting him up to speed. So Matt Matt Mitchell moving
on to Colorado State as the quarterbacks coach there, you
had to find someone that was just as good or
better than Matt Mitchell.
Speaker 1: I think they got someone just as good or better.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's great, And I think I heard you earlier Sam,
it was not somebody that was on our radar.
Speaker 1: Yeah right.
Speaker 4: You know it makes you think wonder where if a
Rod got together with our tight ends coach gilbrid and
and decide, you know, maybe that's a Gilbride connection that brought.
Speaker 3: That in as well.
Speaker 4: You knows, because we know Kevin's got a an expansive network.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: He was with the New England Patriots from twenty twenty
twenty twenty four or sorry, twenty twenty twenty twenty two.
Then was at U dub as an offensive analyst twenty
twenty three, wide receiver coach for the New England Patriots
twenty twenty four. He's got history with Urban Meyer twenty thirteen,
Ohio State. He was a head coach at Snow College.
Became he was twenty and four in those two years,
I believe it's Snow College. And before that, I think
he was OC and quarterbacks coach at Snow College. So
he was there at Snow for a while before becoming
head coach. And you look at it, I mean, it's
just expansive experience. It's so many different levels, right, you know,
from junior college, high school to junior college to the
to the like power for highest level to the NFL.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he car carries a lot. I mean, he's
got a lot of knowledge, a lot of a.
Speaker 4: Lot that we can bring to the team and to
the It's nice when you've been around like that, you're
you're also going to bring a lot to the staff. Yeah,
you know, the team meeting rooms and and and just
the coaches meetings, and there's just a lot, a lot.
You've seen so much football on so many different levels
that your knowledge is just through the.
Speaker 3: Roof, you know. So I think it's gonna be great.
Speaker 4: I'm good look forward to get to knowing him and
seeing what they produce.
Speaker 2: I don't see any weak links right now with our staff.
Remember like you're looking at all the the support roles
as well. Yeah, I'm looking at yes, the position coaches, Yes,
the gas Yes, the analysts. I'm also looking at strength
and conditioning. I'm looking at your general manager, Jay George
and and many people don't know Trafas Hansen has taken
a role within football to kind of oversee you know.
I don't know what his official title would be, but
he's definitely arm and armhanded hand with the general manager,
trying to create strategic nil B to B type of
relationships between corporations that love BYU and love these student
athletes and combining them. So there's a lot of good
going on within the football department right now.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'm excited about I think they've done a
good job at at kind of filling the gaps that
we needed. And uh, you know, it'll as we start
to progress and see what Kelly Papinion does in uh
as a defensive coordinator and and how he's able to
get his players to buy it.
Speaker 3: Actually, I don't even feel like he has to get
him to buy in.
Speaker 4: I think they all love him already, you know, And
so they're they're bought into what he's going to bring in,
and it'll just be interesting to see what he decides
to do and and how he makes his mark as
a coordinator, and and what his offense or his defense
you know, does or you know fly around, you know,
Arey're gonna blitz a lot or it's it's kind of
exciting to see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what type of defense do you think Kate Pops
is gonna employ?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think he's gonna he's gonna take some
of the things that he learned with UH over the
last couple of years and and be able to incorporate those.
But I'm sure he's had many nights thinking about what
he would do differently, as everybody does. You know, you
sit in the coach's room and you listen to your
coach doc and as good as Jay Hill is, I'm
sure there's times when he goes would have might maybe
done a little bit different here, and and I haven't been.
Speaker 3: Able to coach under under a guy like Jay Hill.
Speaker 4: I think it gives him a really good advantage going
into this next year where he can he can kind
of piggyback off of what they were doing and from there,
incorporate some of those things that he's been pondering over
the past years and things that he would do in
the defense. And and it's gonna be Uh, I think
we're gonna be He's an aggressive dude right when you
when you get to get around, and especially when he's
in a in a competitive moment like that's the guy
face to face that you might not want to face
on a back alley when he's kind of.
Speaker 3: Upset, you know. I think I think he has that
in him.
Speaker 4: I think his whole family think the Papingas in general
kind of carry that and so that vibe I think
he's going to take to the defense and and and
it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be real fun to
see what they do. But I expect them to be
very aggressive, hard hitting, just everyone to the ball type defense.
And and yeah, there's just there's a lot of potential.
Speaker 2: Well what's the potential for the offense next year? Do
you think you don't lose anybody? Like, you really don't
lose I mean what I'm saying is coming from a
coaching staff, you don't lose anybody, and you didn't lose
anybody that was impactful outside of like you know, your
Chase Roberts and your off you have a few offensive linemen,
but you knew that they were going they didn't have
any eligibility.
Speaker 3: I left.
Speaker 1: It's not like this is attrition.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: The offense is gonna I think they're gonna do really,
really well. I found it interesting that we didn't. We didn't.
I mean maybe maybe we did, but we didn't get
who we wanted. But I feel like we we should
have put another running back in the back there. You know,
I maybe the coaches know something that we don't, and
there's some confidence and players that.
Speaker 3: That we haven't seen enough of yet. Yeah, but you
lose it.
Speaker 4: Let's you know, knock on wood right now, But you
lose an LJ to an injury or he's got to
sit out a couple of games for one reason or another.
Speaker 3: You've got to have something solid in there.
Speaker 4: We we I don't feel like we're gonna be a
national contender if if ore, if we're still questioning, I.
Speaker 3: Wonder who are who are uh? Who are running back
to really is? You know? Now? I feel like will
be the one two punch on that.
Speaker 2: But that's this is too years in which has had
an injury and he's.
Speaker 3: You don't know.
Speaker 4: That's why I feel like you need to have now
maybe Preston Rex and and de Moony are going to
come in and really shine, but go this whole season.
Speaker 3: You know, he just always had that little wonder in the.
Speaker 4: Back of the head, like who's gonna come in if
LJ goes down or you know l J looks tired,
Who's coming in?
Speaker 3: I sure hope that you know, they have a plan for.
Speaker 4: This and and uh, but I I hope Preston Rex
gets some more time. I think they build a little
bit more around his speed on the outside. I think
that would help. The swing passes to him are great.
You know, he's an open space guy where he can
find find the ability to to find the end zone
or or just get outside and get ten yards. But yeah,
I'm interested to see what they do the Spring's gonna
be fun to watch the running back room and just
kind of see how that develops.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a robust staff. Justin Atta gonna be
a special teams coordinator. Your reaction to that news and
he's not coaching a position group, right, I mean that's
the special teams When I.
Speaker 4: First heard it, as like I said earlier, I was surprised,
you know, because it's that's that's new to me in
the coaching world. And maybe it's not new in coaching
that the guys the sole special teams coordinator, but I
think it's I think it's going to do well with it,
you know, And and uh, deep down, I kind of
feel like they needed to give him a different, a better,
bigger role. As you know, I thought he was a
front run for the DC position, and so once Pepinka
got it, I think they needed to give him a
little bit more of a boost and a little bit
more there. And as a coordinator, he probably is getting
a little bit more responsibility and a little bit more
opportunity to grow as a coach.
Speaker 2: I think it's really cool like to have him not
have a position group because something really impactful that Kelly
Pepingas stated in his interview with b Willias Sports Nation
after he took the defensive coordinating jobs. He said, look
like I've been coaching the entire team over the last
three years. I take offensive guys, I take defensive guys,
and I put them on special teams. I was addressing
the staff or I was addressing the staff and the
players more than anybody on the team. Because I'm always coaching,
I'm coaching special teams units. So it's a really holistic
role that is extremely impactful. We've seen the impact of
special teams over the last three years in particularly in
our wins and losses, even going into twenty twenty. Like
Edland was a really good special teams coordinator. He was
really good. He was the assistant aad coach, and he
was over special teams. Why, because that.
Speaker 1: You win games. It's competitive ivetage. Who you focus on it.
Speaker 2: You you allocate proper resources too, You allocate the proper
bandwidth in strategy schematics.
Speaker 1: You win football games that way.
Speaker 2: And Billie's won Yeah, a lot of football games through
special teams.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you guys, we have.
Speaker 2: There are very few teams that have created more touchdowns
and more turnovers through special teams than BYU since twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the late coach Ron Han from Rick's College, shout.
Speaker 1: Out to Ron Han. Shout out to Ron what a
great coach.
Speaker 3: He used to say.
Speaker 4: And there are three big plays every single game, and
those big plays a lot of times happen on special teams, right, Yeah,
and those are the game changing plays that make or
break the end of the game.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So if you can dominate in special teams and and
you can get your best players on special teams to play,
you're gonna do well.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I mean when I when I was punting at ricks
as a punter, we through three fakes. You know, we're
three for three ninety five yards, three first downs, but
game changing plays that had they not happened, and you
know you're turning the ball over, who knows where that
would go for me, you know. So there's so much
opportunity and having justin just focused solely on special teams,
hopefully we can find some opportunities in.
Speaker 3: Some ways to break open some of those big plays
in the special teams.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, And but.
Speaker 4: Yeah, whether it's field goals, whether it's punts, whether it's
it's it's changing the the field position and pinning them
back deep on some good, good punts and and then
good coverage, And there's just so much that goes into that.
But there's there's not a lot of plays that give
an opportunit need to make a big play more than
a special teams.
Speaker 1: Jared real Quick.
Speaker 2: Tell us what you do there at Utah Protective Films
and why our fans should call our call you guys
over there at Utah Protective Films or any car wraps
window ten as well as chrume delete.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, we first and foremost we have a very good,
honorable staff of employees and we all work on cars.
So it's uh the guys that you talk with at
the shop of the guys that work on the car.
We don't contract our workout, So I think that's a
big piece of business. Read our reviews online, go to
Google check out our reviews. Those are those are a
great source and uh, we we pride ourselves and maintaining
a really good standard. Got a bunch of five star
reviews in there to read. So that's that's that's probably
the best place you can go to to kind of
see what people think of what we do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you also take care of the student athletes.
Speaker 2: We I mean, how many different student athletes have come
in and received a car wrap from you at either
no charge or at a heavily discount of rate, just
your cogs.
Speaker 3: Over twenty over twenty five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I mean, it's taking care of the
guys in the riots.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we got a special special group price for
those guys and sure, and I enjoy it because man,
when we played, I would have loved to have somebody
step they go, helly, I'll give you this discount coming.
Speaker 2: You know, we've done events over there too with you,
like they come by, they hang out like we you know,
we had a great, great event over there between Tesla
and the Soundhouse with Utah Protective Films delving into the community.
Speaker 1: I love you guys over there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I appreciate it. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 4: I just like being able to take care of the
guys and and uh yeah something that we never got
so we got to give it now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, No, that's that's what that's what we do, right,
you try to give back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you look where you stand. Yeah, you know, you say, hey,
what would have been nice?
Speaker 2: Let me ask you that as a player at b YU,
what do you think would have been the most beneficial
to have that you didn't that some of these guys
have right now?
Speaker 1: Many all of it.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know what I mean, if you could
pick out something that would be haven't.
Speaker 4: Been a preferred walk on, it would have been the
ability to to get that scholar it's not even a scholarship,
but have all your Twitter. Everybody gets everything before for school, right,
you make the team your covered right, And that would
have been big because guys like me, you know who.
I don't know if I've ran through my my my schedule,
what it was like for me that first year at BYU.
But that season I was literally going go, go, go
to go to team meetings around one o'clock, go to practice,
and I would go to school in the evening till
nine o'clock and then I'd go to work from ten
thirty pm till six am, go home, asleep for five hours,
and do it over again.
Speaker 3: And that was my routine.
Speaker 4: And so being able to have real rest and a
real program where I didn't have to be so concerned
about survival, I think my football might have done a
little bit better.
Speaker 3: Where I could just focus on football. School but football.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, I'll give you one hundred percent, dude.
Speaker 2: Like luckily for me, so I had scholarships at Eastern
and at Glende, be partial at at Glendale, less at Glendale.
Speaker 1: But more I had three four scholarship in Eastern.
Speaker 2: So I told my dad I was like, look, you know,
I had choices, right, walk on it be way you
walk on it like U of A or.
Speaker 1: ASU, or I could take like the SUU scholarship or
Liberty scholarship. But I was like, okay.
Speaker 2: I told him initially I was going to su and
then the Lord stepped in and said, no, you're not,
like literally like step in and like I was like
heart beating out of my chest, wake up in the
middle of the night. I had everything packed and he's like, no,
you're going to be YU. And so I said, look, Dad,
I want to be successful there. I have a red shirt,
I have two years. I'm most likely in a red shirt.
I'm walking on. So it's like gonna be hard to play.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Help me out financially for the first year and a half,
you know, and let's see if I can get a scholarship.
Speaker 1: You know, I think I can. I really believe I can't.
Speaker 2: If you help me out, right, I'll try to keep
my cost down all that stuff. I stayed at my
grandpa's condemned building off nineties ninth fourth, so like, Grandpa,
let me stay there. I paid for utilities, but he
was literally condemned, Like you know, who knows what impact? Like,
who knows what I was breathing? Is the pilot light
of the furnace is going out every day. There's spiders everywhere,
abatist in the air, like who knows? Like I just
pray like it, you know, it's all good anyway. So
I stayed there and I was on campus essentially riding
my bike to school and stuff like that. All that stuff,
I wouldn't have been able to do what I did.
I wouldn't have scalable macro growth within my development as
a football player, getting bigger, faster, stronger, focusing even on nutrition.
If I didn't have that financial help from my dad
saying you know what, yeah, I'm gonna front your cost.
He could have said, like go get it like a
student loan out like that and that you know you
pay interest on that.
Speaker 1: He said, no, you'll pay me back. You know, he
paid me back. But and I did. I got a scholarship.
Speaker 2: But like, so I'm right there with you, like you
need you know you need, so you need a little
bit of help And that would have been huge.
Speaker 3: So yeah, now he if you don't mind, let me
real quick little shout outs. We're all sports here. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yes, So my brother in law has been the CFO
for the athletic department down at UNLV. Oh really, dude
just got hired. He is now the CFO the athletic
department Miami.
Speaker 1: No way, your brother, my brother in law, your brother.
Speaker 4: In law shut out Taylor, my sister's husband, Taylor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, locked in.
Speaker 4: He's been interviewing all around, trying to get go a
little bigger than ULB and get into a little bit
better program. And yeah, he just locked in. So they're
moving to Miami and yeah that won't be there next Yeah,
so super excited. A little shadow is awesome and yeah,
it really exciting. I'm my hope is one day and
his hope is too that that BYU finds him and bringing.
Speaker 2: Up Yeah, so b yu and you know, because I
was looking at the organizational chart here within the athletic
department and BYU's control. Well, so you have a GM
right now, like Dave George is awesome.
Speaker 3: If David David Taylor know each other, I've connected us,
you did.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're working so like yeah, so but he
would be you know, Taylor would be more on the athletic.
Speaker 1: Department side of things rather than just over football.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, but I think that because the football team
is now more like an organization, like like an NFL team,
I think that there will be eventually kind of like
a CFO of football because there's so much more money
coming in there. So you're right, Yeah, good stuff, congratulations.
Any final football thoughts before we let you go?
Speaker 3: Brother, Now, let's go.
Speaker 4: Let's got springball coming out of Guys are working out,
Guys are getting stronger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyone we need to keep our eye out for,
Like he's gonna step up, show up, show out.
Speaker 4: I don't know yet, you know, I want to get
these guys in and start seeing what they do when
the pads are on.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna meet with Uh.
Speaker 4: We're gonna do some work on the new wide receiver
from Oregon's car. UH here soon and I get to
meet him and kind of get a fill for them
Mulu Aaby. I have to chatted with a little bit
about doing some stuff in his car. And so I'm
excited to meet the new guys and see where they're
gonna fit in. And yeah, I'm just excited for springball.
Super competitive and expectations are high.
Speaker 1: Do you think, b what you ads are running back
after springball.
Speaker 3: I wish we would have done it before, but it's
always a possibility.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gotcha, they're gonna, yeah, they'll they'll evaluate. See what's
going on in the locker room, See what's going on
in the depth chart.
Speaker 2: All right, that's Jared Blatcho Utah Protective Films, Utiprotective Films
dot Com. Get a call, rap, get a car tin,
get a window tint, get chrome to lead their at
Utah Protective Films. They do the best job at the
best prize. Get fifteen percent off when you mentioned myself
for ESPN the Fan. Before we go to break though,
let's kick it out for a Cougar Sports Press