Speaker 1: Is Cougar Sports with Ben gredel At.
Speaker 2: It's time for the Cougar Beat.
Speaker 1: Getting the dish from the local reporters that cover Cougar athletics.
Speaker 3: Rocking out here on a beautiful Wednesday edition of Cougar Sports.
I'm Bet Griddle broadcasting from our Bender Rold Studios band
over Wealth dot Comedy's time.
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Speaker 2: Let's get out to the hotline.
Speaker 3: Welcome in Double Day had and uh Darnell Dixon.
Speaker 2: What's up, Double D?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: I see you had Kilani and Kyle Collinsworth on before me,
so I'm honored actually be on the station after those guys.
Speaker 3: Hey, look, we we love having Double D's voice to
be on the show and promulgated throughout all of Cougarnation,
Like there's you're right up there with Kilane quotes and
Kyle Collsworth quote quotes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it. But that's
nice of you to say that.
Speaker 3: Hey, you know, you know when I when I like fiery,
you know, opinionated Darnell, because that's what really gets the
coaches down at b YU fired up. Remember Mike Littlewood
getting after you on Twitter when you made some strong
opinions on on the on the on the Twitter platform.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah. And we see him all the time.
He's he's officiating college basketball quite a bit, and I
see him on there quite all the time.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, Double D.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you poke the bear and let's see if you
can give us a hot quote today, controversial quote today.
Speaker 2: It is signing day, double D. You've evaluated, you've.
Speaker 3: Weighed, have you found the prospects lacking, wanting or do
you feel like this was a pretty good haul for
the Cougar football team.
Speaker 1: No, it's an excellent hall. And you know, they keep
increasing the number of staff and coaches, so they're going
to have plenty of support these new guys coming into
the program. And there is a lot of talent. It's
obviously a highly rated class. It's spread out. It's not
quite as special it used to be, where we just
had the one day in February or one day in
December or whatever. We only have two days, and BYU
is a program. It retained a lot of its talent
from last year, so not a lot of new stuff
coming out this year. They did list some of the
guys returning from missions with midyear enrollies. A lot of
athletes now are taking advantage of graduating from high school
or at least so they can join the program in
January and get into offseason workouts and springball. So those
things lead you to look at this group and say
they've filled some nice gap that they had, and they
brought back a lot of players that they think they
can help them. And when you do that, you believe
in your ability as a coaching staff to evaluate talent
and to develop talent. And if they continue to do that,
we'll see them putting on similar seasons as we've seen
the last two where they've put themselves in a position
to be in the college football playoffs.
Speaker 2: The talent is impressive.
Speaker 3: I believe there was some return missionaries as well that
came back from their respective missions. Are you most excited
about the transfers? Are you most excited about the true
freshmen that aren't going on missions or are you more
excited about the return missionaries?
Speaker 1: Well, some of the true freshmen I've actually seen play
a you know, spend a lot of time watching Devonica
and a legend Glasgar at Lehigh. Those are two very
talented offensive players I think are going to have a
great career at b YU and could have the opportunity
to make an impact early on. But it is really
intriguing to look at players from other schools who have
decided to utilize the transfer portal and come to BYU.
You see what their production was like like Catu lave
that a linebacker was an All Conference at Cal and
I was at b YU and the offensive lineman they
brought in to bolster that attack, and the prospects of
keeping Kyle Kasper healthy so he can live up to
his potential. So those kind of things intrigued me quite
a bit. And then the other thing that in intrigues
me is you know who is going to step up
from being third fourth string to being a contributor on
defense or even a starter for the Cougars. So there's
lots of that that gets developed over the course the
next several months, including springball, and then we get the
fall camp and see them for real. So that's that's
and and what we're seeing now with college basketball or
college football rather is in the off season. It's not
really an off season. There's all all the transfer portal
news and and the free kind of free agency attack.
As we're listening to an interview today with former BA
YOU coach Bronco Mendenhall about why he continues to coach
when others are getting out of coaching because they just
don't like this particular grind the way it's become. And
he said his opportunity to help develop and have relationships
with the young men in his program, helped them to
get better as not just football players, but as human beings,
and to set their life in motion for things they
want to do. That keeps him coming back. But he
definitely understands when there are coaches that decide, this isn't
what I signed up for, and I don't really like
this whole landscape of college football anymore. So it does
obviously peak the interest of fans that it's college sports
is more popular, especially football and men's basketball, than it's
ever been, and so people are interested to see what
comes of all these off seas and moves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a few missionaries I want to talk about here.
Bilia's added eight players from previously signed classes returning home
from missions. Mid your enrolledees owen Borg linebacker, Matthew Frederick
tight end, Blake Low linebacker, Jet Nelson wide receiver, two
Wee Pututao offensive line, Adney Ree defensive end, David Tungi
Lanu defensive tackling, and Enick Watson quarterback. Out of those editions,
who stands.
Speaker 2: Out to you?
Speaker 1: One name that stands out to me is Jet Nelson
he's a wide receiver out of American fork lot because
I saw him play in high school in a very
good you know, he has has the size and the
ability to to be successful at this next level, and
America works put out some good wide receivers. Adney Reid
is really interesting because of his situation where he was in.
It wasn't the only he only played like one or
two years in Utah. And I believe his parent, his
dad was a mission president, was up the story with
him and and and he ended up over in Samoa.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's an interesting thing. He's a great athlete,
but I just haven't seen a lot of him playing football.
Owen Borg is a is a corner Canyon kid who
put up pretty good numbers in high school. Uh. And
then Enick Watson who played down at American Leadership Academy
in Arizona, if I'm correct, And and so there's there's
a few of those guys that I'm familiar with, and
their journey is always interesting because if they do get
and they signed mid year, there's a specific program available
to them to get them back into shape. And you
don't expect guys like that to contribute in their first year,
but it's possible, but they grind, you know, they put
put it in the work and then give themselves an
opportunity down the road to play.
Speaker 3: Darnell Dixon double Deed the Daily heraldon Daily heralding talking
to some Cougar football, some Cougar football recruiting here on
your Utah ESPN radio network. As far as the transferportal,
I guess acquisitions. Which of these players do you feel
is going to be most impactful in twenty twenty six
and why.
Speaker 1: I would look at Walker Lyons the tight end from
usc because BYU does have a need there with Ryan
graduating and probably getting a chance at the NFL. Carson Ryan,
who was rated as one of the top tight ends
in the country, I mean the top for into Pro
Football Focus as I was reading today, and so also
Roger Salipogo. I've seen him play. He was an ORMI kid,
went to Oregon, so I got some playmakers, and I
think even b Way's coaches Aaron Rodgers day was talking
about how the tight end position it had some issues
in the past several years, but they really like what
happened was last year with Carson Ryan, so they want
to keep that going and make the tight end a
really big weapon in the offense. And those are two
guys that I think that can make an impact there
because they are big and strong and playmakers, and you
want to have that.
Speaker 3: Walker Lions tight end? Is it back at Brigham Darnol?
I know you've been a vocal criticizer of the lack
of tight end utilization.
Speaker 2: Are you?
Speaker 3: Are you a believer now that a Rod has got
the tight end owed with Carson Ryan being the highest
rated PFF tight ending college football and over six hundred
yards of receiving, three touchdowns and forty five receptions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they've They've made some good strides there.
You know, some of it depends sometimes on who you're
quarterback feels comfortable with, so it depends on what you're
running games like. I think they had a good mixture
last year having a great running game that utilized the
tight end and then made him a very effective receiver.
I think that the way they used Carson Ryan was
terrific and he made some big plays for them, and
also that puts him in a great position coming up
with his professional opportunities. So I think the combination of
all of that kind of led them to maybe rediscover
that tight end spot, and I think we'll continue to
see that activity from that spot as we get into
the season with Walker Lyons and Roger Taliapaga and then
the guys coming back. I think Noah Mouyaki has some
good ability over there. Kean Reid has been a real
big blocker for them. He might get a little bit
of action. So yeah, they've they've done some good things
there and put themselves in a position to make that
spot really effective against their opponents.
Speaker 3: Your reaction, Now we have it, We've got a roster, right,
it seems like the rosters settled. There may be an
addition or subtraction along the way, but it's probably it's
probably is what it is. B Way also solidified their
coaching staff. You got Lewis Clark as your cornerbacks coach,
DA Mario Warren safety's coach, passing game coordinator. On the
defense side, the thing inside linebackers, you have Sony Puoat
defensive line Chad k kahahah as the outside edge and
outside linebackers coach Justin Ena moves over to special teams
coordinator full time, not taking a position, and then you
have the offense side of the ball. That's pretty much
retained in its entirety. But they did acquire Tyler Hughes,
a individual as a as an assistant quarterbacks coach, an
individual that's coached at Alabama in the NFL with the
new Patriots. He's been at Ohio State with her and Meyer.
Pretty robust resume. He was a head coach at Snow
College for a time and an offense coordinator for a time,
so know college. He comes from the state of Utah.
How would you evaluate the how would you grade out
the coaching staff right now? With everything that's occurred. You
lost Jay Hill and Gennaro, but you gained some suitable replacements.
Speaker 1: It looks like, yeah, I'm going to be interested and
really paying close attention to how Kellor Goopinger runs to
this defense. If it's any different than Jay Hill. You know,
what are his personality quirts that things that he likes
to do. An A couple of things that occurred to
me though while going through all this, going back to
two thousand during the pandemic, I was trying to look
for some topics to kind of write about during that time,
and I saw I believe it was Nebraska was letting
go of a lot of their not a lot, but
some of their employees in this the athletic department. And
so I started looking at how many employees do schools have?
And at that point, if I recalled I don't know
if I called my numbers correctly, but it seems like
BYU was around maybe two hundred or so, and other
schools like Alabama Nebraska were three even four hundred employees
in their athletic department and that was two thousand. So
fast forward six years, by using the Big twelve, they're
starting to increase the number of staff and coaches, especially
in the football program. And I think one thing that's
supportant and you and I, Ben I have talked about
this a lot. How BYU is very serious about stewardship
of making sure they're doing that the right way and
not getting over their skis, so to speak, like a
lot of schools are. What do we see today Florida
States almost five hundred million dollars in debt in their
athletic department. BYU is not doing that. They're taking their time,
They're making sure they can afford whatever changes they're making.
It's in the budget projecting what they need and so
that's a couple of things that occurred to me, is
that BYU is increasing the number of staff. And it
used to being you go, well, we got the head coach,
the coordinators, so the position coach is a couple of
gas and the wait, guys, that's kind of what it
was for a long time. And now you've got performance
coaches and you've got nutritionists, and you've got more analysis
that are going on, more analysts that are stepping up
and doing things. So b YU is approaching and I've
asked BYU to give me the numbers. We'll see if
they help out. But trying to figure out how much
BYU was grown in that area, especially in football, and
so because they've done it the right way and they're
still operating their athletic department to make money and they're
not like these other programs who spend it and then
look at the bottom line later and go, oops, looks
like we spent too much. That's not BYU. And I
think they've done a great job of incorporating these new
positions and you know, chief of staff and the performance
coaches and the mental strength situations there. So that's what
occurs to me. They look at that. You know, it's
what we'll find out. If these are good coaches, they're
going to have a lot of responsibilities step and do
things the way that Kelly wants on defense because there's
so many changes on that side of the ball, and
we'll see what effect that has on the team. But
like I said, the main thing that occurs to me
is that b why he's doing this the right way
and building their football program. This has been a huge
part of it in the staff and the coaches.
Speaker 3: Yeah, great points here with with Darnell Dixon, the Daily
Kraality in talking of some BYU football recruiting as well
as coaching on the grid. Ard, Let's take a little
let's pivot b YU basketball. What are you optimistic about?
What are you concerned about regarding this Boa basketball team.
Speaker 1: I'm optimistic because I believe that Kevin Young is a
really good basketball coach, and I think it's taking some
time for him to get the feel of this particular
team as opposed to what he had last year. I
still feel like there's some maybe some changes that he's
going to make, maybe not in the starting lineup, but
in the approach for things. I know they spent a
lot of time in the summer working on defense, specifically
three point defense, and whatever they're doing isn't working particularly
well in the Big Twelve. They're fifteenth right now out
of sixteen teams and opponent's field goal percentage from three
and they're eleventh in defense in the Big twelfth play
at eighty one points a game. So I think, according
to what we when we're spoke speaking to Kevin earlier
this week, that he wanted to simplify things a little bit.
He said he watched every defensive possession that BYU has
had in the Big Twelve this season, and he knows
what needs to be fixed, what needs to be changed,
And I think the key area was he wanted to
simplify things a little bit defensively, and he feels like,
you know, he doesn't want to hear people talk about
how great there in the second half, because he wants
them to be good in the first half. And so
what he's looking at is a better defensive effort early
might put them in a position where they have a
better first half and were consists. Now they've had starts
to good first halfs, and part of the first halfs
have been good. They just haven't been able to sustain it,
and they put themselves in a hole against some of
these better teams. So the optimism, as I said, is
Kevin Young's a good coach. I think we'll get this
figured out. And the things, maybe you know, I'm not
so optimistic about, is the continued struggles of anybody other
than the big three. And you know, Kavakata has had
his struggles as well. Some of it's been I think injuries.
I think it's slowed him down just a little bit.
But Cannard Davis has been a huge disappointment in my mind.
And inconsistency as that starter, the fifth guy. And then
they've not had really anybody come off the bench consistently either.
They've had a few things here and there where players
stepped up and shot well or done some good things,
but not consistently. And I think until they get that
squared away, they're going to continue to kind of go
up and down and struggle against elite teams in this league.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first half woes.
Speaker 3: Kay, Why said I'm gonna throw up the next time
someone mentions that, were like the best I can have
team at college basketball. We suck in the first half
or whatever he said, But can you diagnose and treat
why they are They're they're not horrible in the first half.
Speaker 2: There's not good in the first half.
Speaker 1: Well, like I said, it's been a consistency issue. If
you look at that Eragona game and Arizona's the number
one team in the country and they're really good, I mean,
I don't think there's any question. Maybe you could say
you come to the number one team in the country
because Ukon has been destroying fools, but Arizona's really good.
And for thirteen minutes of that first half, the Uyu
was right right with them. They were nine lead changes
and six ties in that first thirteen minutes. They're playing
right with them. And then the last seven minutes they
kind of unraveled and Arizona took off and got the lead,
and then that put them, you know, behind the eight
ball in the second half when they made them some
strikees to get back in it. So it's just a
matter I think consistent, and part of that consistency is
is not being able to get the lift off the
bench that they need. They got to arrest the big
three occasionally, they got arrest k that occasionally, and guys
have to come in and not necessarily score a lot
of points, but not hurt the team. And you know,
it's different for starters than it is for guys coming
off the bench. You're expected to come in and maintain
a level that the starters have established. But if things
go badly and you can't make shots and you're getting
beat on defense and turn your turnovers, then that's what happened.
Then they got to get the starters back in and
they're not as fresh at the end of the game,
and the rotations change. So that's what I look at
with this team in this first half is as Kevin
Young was saying, play better defense, be more consistent, so
that you go into halftime, if you're within a few points,
that's cool. You're leading by a few points, that's cool.
That way, you don't feel so much the pressure for someone.
And you know, when you think about how Byu has
come back in the second half, it's been one of
the big three just kind of going off like Richie
did in the second half last week, and how Aj
went off in the second half against Yukon when they
fell behind big They need the team to pull them
out of that, not just one guy and that'll increase
and help I think their consistency and doing that more often.
Speaker 3: Great breakdown from Double D the Daily Heraldy and darn
Al Dixon Double The best way to support you?
Speaker 2: What you do, how you do it?
Speaker 3: Actually, I got one more question for you as well,
hope questions by that, what's the best way to support you?
Speaker 2: What you do, how you do it?
Speaker 1: Brother Well, Harold extra dot com. You can follow me
on x if you like Darnell Wrights and and just
just enjoy this time of year. I was just typing
in by U baseball and softball schedules the other day
and to our budget and realizing, man, it's going to
get super busy once we get to We've got state
tournaments coming out for high school basketball and wrestling and
all those sports, and it's it's a busy time of year.
And just enjoy it, love it.
Speaker 3: Kyle Collins were taught on and he said, I think
there's going to be a surprise step up that hasn't
got a lot of minutes lately coming in. I'll let
you guys figure out who I'm talking about, but someone
who's barely played this year is going to step up
coming down the stretch. Who do you think it is
and why is it that Alexakostik, Tyler Morross, Dominique Dimande
or Jared McGregor.
Speaker 2: Those are my top four picks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Tyler was in the rotation to start
the season, but he's fallen out. I would think it
might be Dominique, just because he's willing to spend a
lot of energy playing defense and not worry about his
offensive production and if they need a lift on that
perimeter or he's big enough, we can guard it forward.
Even I think that he's a guy that maybe could
step up and do some of that and bring them
some good energy, kind of like Hadem Boop does coming
off the bench. Just the guy that's going to get
after it on the boards and get after it defensively
and if any offense comes his way. And by the way,
he hit his first three pointer of the year in
that game last week, so maybe Boop, but he's been
getting some plain time, so I would say Diamandi, I
think we might see a little more of him if
Kyle is being predictive.
Speaker 3: Prognosticators of Prognosticators, the college football college basketball seer of Sears,
Darnell Dixon gives you the prediction.
Speaker 2: There you go. Appreciate you at Darnell great stuff as always.
Speaker 1: All right, Ben, thanks every good week.
Speaker 2: I like that. We should do it. Darnell Dixon gives
you the prediction segment every week. I like it.
Speaker 3: That's our segment. We're sticking to it. Download that interview
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