Carter and Blackmon shine during spring scrimmage

PROVO, Utah – A pair of touchdowns by Nate Carter and Cody Bond along with a Nick Kurtz touchdown catch highlighted BYU’s “Friday Night Lights” spring scrimmage at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

“I saw what I’ve seen all spring,” BYU head football coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “We’re going to be able to score a lot of points, and I think we’re going to be explosive. Our team is unified, there’s good chemistry, and we’re on the right track.”

The night began with position group drills, then 7-on-7 pass skeleton, followed by a live 11-on-11 team scrimmage. Many members of the first team offense, including Taysom Hill, Algernon Brown and Mitch Mathews, only participated in 7-on-7 drills. 

Christian Stewart completed 10 of 13 passes for 138 yards and a touchdown. Hunter Moore completed 2 passes for 39 yards. Carter rushed for 56 yards and a touchdown on five carries, while Devon Blackmon led all receivers with two catches for 48 yards.

Photo Gallery: kids clinic, fan festivities and scrimmage 

On the opening drive of the scrimmage, Carter took a handoff over the right side of the line, then cut all the way across the field gaining 42 yards before being tackled inside the 10-yard line. A couple plays later, Carter finished the drive with a 4-yard touchdown scamper up the middle. Stewart was the quarterback for the offense on the drive.

A couple drives later, Cody Bond scored on a short 3-yard run for the second touchdown of the game for the offense. The run was set up when Stewart rolled right and hit Trey Dye in a tight window along the sideline on a comeback route. Early in the drive, Stewart found Colby Pearson on a 21-yard deep out route that extended the drive.

The third and final touchdown of the scrimmage was scored by Kurtz on a 4-yard slant pass from Stewart. The highlight of the drive came on a previous play when Stewart hit a streaking Blackmon down the sideline for a 42-yard gain.

Bronson Kaufusi led the Cougars defensively with two tackles for a loss. Austin Heder tallied five tackles.

During 7-on-7 drills before the scrimmage, Hill threw three touchdown passes. The first one was a long completion down the sideline to Blackmon for 49 yards. The second one came a drive later when Hill found Mitchell Juergens for a 6-yard score, while Kurtz also had a 12-yard touchdown grab.

BYU football will continue spring practices on Monday and conclude next week.

“We have three more workdays, there’s no throttling back right now,” Mendenhall said. “We’ll look and establish depth. then we’ll look at spring conditioning, summer conditioning, evaluating the freshmen. Then tweaking the schemes and strategies versus whatever new players might contribute. Getting a great idea of what Nebraska might do on either side of the ball and getting ready to play.”

Attendance for the scrimmage was 14,000.