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PROVO — It turns out, last Thursday’s scrimmage was a pleasant surprise from the BYU defense, according to head coach Kalani Sitake.
A few days after the scrimmage, with a team-bonding paintball session and Provo River trip in the books — along with several days of film review — Sitake doubled down on his initial impression that the defense has improved dramatically between the first and second week of fall camp.
“We forced three fumbles and recovered two. I’m really pleased with what I saw from the defense compared to the first one,” Sitake said Monday as the Cougars ran through the final week of fall camp.
With those words, the team’s defensive identity has also taken shape over recent weeks. While the big changes and newsmakers out of Provo have come from the offensive side of the ball — understandably, with first-year coordinator Jeff Grimes and an almost entirely new staff — the defense has also been morphing into something different.
Part of the changes have been to get more speed on the field, such as safety Zayne Anderson’s much-publicized move to flash linebacker. Coaches are also more confident in the secondary, moving junior Troy Warner from cornerback to safety alongside Dayan Ghanwoloku.
Then there’s Sione Takitaki, the once troubled defensive end who was recently married and has become something of a model citizen for the Cougars as he transitions to outside linebacker.
But don’t expect the 6-foot-2, 230-pound backer to change too much — he still wants to blitz the quarterback when possible.
“I came in playing linebacker, so it’s not really a big change,” Takitaki said. “I feel comfortable playing there.
“I do a lot of similar stuff, so I feel really comfortable. We’re going to run a lot of good stuff.”
Coaches hope the moves make BYU’s defense more well-rounded. Players, too, don’t want to be pegged too deeply into one category — whether it’s just pass rushers or just ball hawks or something in between.
“We’re just being overall ball players, whether that’s going up and attacking the ball and getting turnovers — or being tackling machines,” Warner said. “We want to be known as guys who do it all.”
Long-term injuries
Not all was well on the first full day of Week 3, however.
Sitake said cornerback Trevion Greene and fullback Johnny "Ku-J" Tapusoa could miss significant time with injuries this season.
Neither player was hurt during any live scrimmage work, Sitake said, but rather during non-contact position drills in camp.
“With all the live work we’ve been doing, those guys got hurt on a pretty much non-contact drill,” Sitake said, before cheekily adding, “We should probably go live all the time, just to keep them safe.”
The 5-foot-10 Tapusoa had recently made the move to fullback after spending the 2017 season at linebacker. He played in seven games as a sophomore in 2017, starting two, and totaled 14 tackles with a career-high five against Wisconsin.
Greene, the the 6-foot-3, 195-pound junior college transfer from Chabot College in California, recorded nine tackles in 10 games as a sophomore in 2017, and was expected to be a key contributor at cornerback this year.
Running back Beau Hoge was also “going through some stuff, injury-wise,” according to Sitake, but the head coach expects him to be fully recovered by the season opener. The former quarterback was active but limited during the media-viewing portion of Monday’s practice.
'Rambo Kaufusi'
As mentioned above, the Cougars spent part of Friday and Saturday in team-building exercises away from the football field — first with a team-wide game of paintball and then Saturday floating down the Provo River.
Defensive lineman Corbin Kaufusi impressed his teammates Friday, running shirtless through the middle of several firefights — and earning several paintball-sized welts to prove it.
"Corbin was decked out," Warner joked. "He was out of control, let me tell you. He was on a suicide mission, just running down the middle. You know how he is."
Opara to Ogden
Chinonso Opara, the 6-foot-8, 270-pound defensive end from Juan Diego who signed with the Cougars in February, was added to Weber State’s roster over the weekend. Sitake said he knew about the move, but was not allowed to comment on specifics of the situation.
“Chinonso is a good kid,” Sitake said. “But I don’t control a lot of admissions and stuff like that.”
Opara, who also had an offer from Utah before signing with BYU, took reps in practice in Ogden on Saturday, and could see immediate playing time with the Wildcats.
“We’ve known about Chinonso for a long time,” Weber State coach Jay Hill told the Standard-Examiner. “When we had the opportunity to get him here, it was a no-brainer for us. His potential is so big … we’ve known about his upside.”
