Football finishes third week of spring ball

PROVO, Utah – BYU football concluded its third week of spring ball on Thursday on the outdoor practice field. 

Offensive Coordinator Aaron Roderick | video
On Jaren Hall’s growth
He looks better every day. Being healthy is everything with him. He’s had a tough time staying healthy, but when he's been available to us, he's played well. The first practice or two I would say he was a little rusty. He hadn't played football full-on in a year. The last time he played was when we got five practices last spring, and that was the last time he actually played. So, the first couple of practices of this spring, he was a little rusty. The speed of the game was maybe a little quick for him at first, but he looked good physically. So, when you're as talented as he is, each day he looks a little better and a little better. In the last three days, he's looked like a veteran player out there, and he's doing a good job.

On what has contributed to the success of players being drafted
It’s definitely part of our recruiting strategy. We are trying to recruit players who have NFL ability and who have NFL goals. We want a team full of guys that have a goal to play in the NFL, and especially in the quarterback room. I'm not interested in any quarterbacks that don't at least want to get there. Not everybody will, but that should be an important goal of theirs if they want to play QB for me. So, we're trying to recruit players at every position that have a chance. If you keep getting enough players that have the raw material and you do a good job developing them, then you're bound to have some draft picks at some point. I think that you're going to see more in the next few years.  It's been a big focus in our recruiting and our development.

About this draft class
It starts with good coaches that recruited them. Recruiting is huge and identifying guys at a young age that you think are going to develop. You know, it's not always the five-star national recruit that are coming to BYU. Seeing the guys that were involved in recruiting Brady Christianson, for example. That was a great job by everyone involved in recruiting him and then everybody involved in developing him. He was an undersized guy that was super athletic and there were some coaches here that saw a vision of what he was going to be in five years. You can say that about Dax Milne and Zach Wilson and a bunch of other guys. It starts with recruiting and then development. Of course, for each one of those guys you could just find individual characteristics and in each one of them. They were driven guys that wanted to be great. We got it, we have got to keep it up, we got to keep finding those guys.

Running Back Lopini Katoa | video
On camp so far
One thing just right off the bat that I have noticed is that everybody is super competitive. Every day at practice there's a lot of energy because guys just want to keep what we had going last year, and just keep it rolling. I just see a lot of competition and a lot of energy on the field.

On filling the holes in the offense
There are guys that we lost, obviously big playmakers that we had. It's just basically finding the next man up and who's going to fit in. So far, there's a lot of people that are looking good. It's just a matter of us getting back into a rhythm that we were in last year.

On Tyler Allgeier and Sione Finau
They look really good. These guys, they have so much experience now. They're veteran guys and they look like it on the field. They know what they're doing. It's just a matter of little detail things now. They're just cleaning up things that they didn't have to worry about in the past. … Now they're just playing loose, and they look really good. I really like what I'm seeing from them.

Defensive Lineman Atunaisa Mahe | video
On being back on the field for camp 
It's an amazing feeling. Honestly, I just miss being out there with my brothers. Also, just playing the game that I love, it's been amazing. It's been a blessing for sure.

On building on last year’s success
Well, honestly, it’s just continuing to build off of what we've been doing. Obviously, like with Khyris Tonga and them, we’ve had really good people to watch. It's just to continue to listen to what coach tells us to do, and to perfect that over the offseason.

On camp so far
We have a lot of young guys and they've been able to step up these past few weeks. There's been a lot of progress and fewer mistakes. So, we're just working on executing our plays and footwork and technique. For me personally, it's just a blessing to be able to come back and to be able to be out there on the field. So, all of us are not taking anything for granted. We're just working hard.