2022 Fall Camp: First Scrimmage and Quarterbacks Preview

PROVO, Utah — BYU football conducted its first scrimmage of fall camp at LaVell Edwards Stadium on Saturday.

• Fall Camp BYU Photo Exposure Gallery: https://byuphoto.exposure.co/fall-camp

Each of BYU's five quarterbacks saw action in the scrimmage, with the bulk of the plays going to Jaren Hall and back-up Jacob Conover. Cade Fennegan, Sol-Jay Maiava-Peters and Nick Billoups also took snaps at quarterback during the scrimmage. 

Quotes from the post-scrimmage media availability on Saturday with Hall, linebacker Payton Wilgar, offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick and head coach Kalani Sitake are included below. 

Quarterbacks Preview

More Watch Lists

• Hall named to Manning Award Watch List
• Hall named to CFPA National Performer of the Year Trophy watch list
• Hall named to 2023 Senior Bowl Watch List
• Hall named among top-100 college football players by Pro Football Network

Sitake and Roderick look to continue the program’s recent momentum in 2022 with Hall's returning leadership.  

“Jaren’s really grown as a leader,” Roderick said at BYU Football Media Day on June 22. “He gives credit to his teammates, he’s always quick to critique himself when he doesn’t do something right; our players respect him.”

Senior wide receiver Gunner Romney also lauded Hall’s leadership at Media Day.

“He commands the room whenever he’s there,” Romney said. “He’s the type of person that everybody is going to listen to what he has to say. That has to be the most underrated part of his game.”

Hall started 10 games in 2021, completing 189 of 296 passes for 2,583 yards and 20 touchdowns to just five interceptions. The 6-foot-1, 205-pound signal-caller finished the season ranked in the top-25 nationally in both quarterback rating (78.0) and pass efficiency rating (156.07). Hall’s 307 rushing yards helped him rank No. 19 nationally with 289 yards of total offense per game. College Sports Madness selected Hall as Independent Offensive Player of the Week twice during the season.

Following his 2021 campaign, Hall was recognized by Pro Football Network as Independent Quarterback of the Year and All-Independent First Team.

The 2022 Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award Preseason Watch List featured Hall among 35 of the nation’s top returning quarterbacks upon its July 27 release. As a sophomore in 2021, Hall was on the Davey O’Brien Award Midseason Watch List and was one of eight quarterbacks named to Award’s Great 8 list for his performance in BYU’s 26-17 win over No. 21 Utah. Hall led the Cougars to victory over the rival Utes, going 18 of 30 for 149 yards and three touchdowns, while carrying the ball eight times for 92 yards.

Hall has also received preseason recognition on the Walter Camp Player of the Year and Maxwell Award watch lists. The prestigious Maxwell Award is presented annually to the outstanding player in college football. Phil Steele awarded Hall a place on the All-Independent First Team following the 2021 season and honored him on the magazine’s 2022 preseason All-Independent First Team as well.

The Spanish Fork, Utah, native holds a career completion percentage of 64.3. If Hall maintains that mark through 158 more pass attempts, he can enter the top-5 all-time at BYU in career completion percentage (min. 500 attempts).

In last year's 59-14 win over Idaho State, Hall became the first quarterback since Christian Stewart (2014) to record at least four passing touchdowns and one rushing score in the same game.

After missing three games with injury in 2022, Hall knows his health is key to the team’s success.

“I’m an athletic quarterback and I’m always going to do whatever it takes to make plays throughout the season,” Hall said at Media Day. “If I can just limit some of those crunch time plays when you have to put yourself on the line and sacrifice your body, I think that will help.”

Behind Hall is the talented Jacob Conover who saw action in two games last year. The former five-star recruit helped the Cougars close out a win at Utah State and also appeared against Idaho State. The 6-foot-2, 190-pound Conover has now been in the program for three years and is ready for the call when needed. Coming out of high school in 2018, Conover signed with the Cougars over Alabama, Arizona State, Northwestern, Ole Miss and South Carolina among others.

BYU added Cade Fennegan from Boise State last year. The redshirt freshman from Dallas, Texas quarterbacked the scout team in 2021 and is another option for the BYU offense in 2022 after playing in three games for the Broncos in 2020.

Redshirt freshmen Sol-Jay Maiava-Peters and Nick Billoups round out the quarterback room. Maiava-Peters, a native of Hau’ula, Hawaii, is a dual-threat with a knack for play-making. Billoups, a Utah transfer, also offers athleticism and has spent time running the scout team in 2020.

Post-Scrimmage Quotes

Head coach Kalani Sitake (watch video)

On how the scrimmage went today:

“I thought it was pretty good. The offense took care of the football and the defense had some disruptive plays with some good pressure on the quarterback. The special teams looked clean. There were over 100 total plays today which is just what we wanted. We were able to see a lot of newcomers on the team tackle, break tackles, block and play live football. We’ll evaluate the film and see what we have, but I’m really, really happy with the talent that we have on this team right now. I’m happy and pleased with our first scrimmage.

On the health of the team at this point:

“I imagine the guys are going to be really sore after this practice today and we’ll have the day off tomorrow. But next week is another grind. We have to work really hard and test these guys; even the guys that are proving themselves, there’s ways that you can put them in tough situations where they can still improve.”

On the team’s mental toughness:

“I really like the amount of talent that we have on our team right now and the depth and the experience. The guys are used to being in stadiums and used to some tough situations in the game. I feel like the team’s football IQ has improved as result of our experience.”

On how backup quarterbacks Jacob Conover and Cade Fennegan looked today:

“From what I saw, Jacob’s made huge improvement from even spring to now and even in camp gets better. Cade played really well. He just looks the part and I thought he commanded the offense really well and communicated well.”

On what he wants to see before the opening kickoff against South Florida:

“I want to see some separation in the competition. Like who we are going to go with in terms of our sub-packages or personnel groups. We want to know who’s going to have the major roles and who’s going to be in the rotation. What will our depth look like? We have an idea of our depth chart but I’d like to get it locked down in about a week from now. This is a highly competitive team right now. Right now we have an idea of who our major players are, but it’s just about who else is going to be in the mix and filling out that roster.”

Offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick (watch video)

On the performance of the team during the scrimmage today

“It was a clean scrimmage. That was the main goal today. It was just to play clean football. We took care of it. We had no turnovers and kept the penalties to a minimum. I think we had one holding penalty and one false start. We had one substitution penalty that was probably more my fault than anybody else's. So yeah, for a first scrimmage, that's the main goal is to play clean. You know, execution isn't all the way there yet at times, but overall, I was pleased.”

On the play of younger players in the scrimmage

“Yeah, they got to play a lot. We went about 40 plays of what we call thud tempo with our veteran players, where we’re not tackling to the ground. There's contact and we're playing a little football. It's fairly realistic, but not full game like yet, and then we went 50 plays with where we were tackling and a lot of the younger players got to play in that part of the practice, and it's good to see those guys in a game type situation at a variety of positions.”

On how the quarterbacks performed as a unit today

“Overall, it was a good day again, we took care of the ball. That's the main thing in a first scrimmage. There's a lot of mixed match lineups out there. We’re rotating offensive linemen a lot. We're rotating tight ends. We held some good players out, and so anytime you start subbing people in and out like that, there's a chance that maybe not every play is going to go perfectly, and so the quarterback position is really important in these things to just show that you have command over the offense and that you know what you're doing with the ball, and I thought we took good care of it. So, and that was all the guys took care of the ball. We had one play the whole day that you'd say was nearly a turnover. Everything else was making good decisions, and so I was happy with that. I thought we made some good throws, and our executions are going to get cleaner and better. I'm really confident in that.”

On an offensive standout in the scrimmage

“Tanner Wall made a great catch. He made a great play on a post corner out today I thought was nice. Miles Davis had some good runs in the portion of practice where we were tackling, and he showed the ability to break some tackles. I thought that was good. Cade Fennegan made some good plays. So did Jacob Conover. Both of those guys made some good throws, and Jaron just did what he always does. Just really efficient, very clean. We didn't play him that much so it wasn't like he would have had amazing stats or anything but he just did what he was supposed to do and showed good command of the offense, and I might be forgetting somebody but those are just a few plays that pop into my head that were nice.”

Quarterback Jaren Hall (watch video)

On the offense's performance in Saturday's scrimmage

"We still have a little bit to work on. Sometimes during a scrimmage, the urgency can be a little low. We need to treat the scrimmage more like a game. We only had three drives and need to make the most of those. We had one good drive and two other drives where we didn’t perform super well."

On the offensive line's performance on Saturday

"Good as always. Those guys have a tough job going against our defense everyday. We have to find new, innovative ways to call our plays so they don’t get relayed across the ball. They did very well today as always."

On the running backs' performance on Saturday

"It’s hard to see the yards after contact in scrimmages since everything is tagged off and the refs are good at blowing the whistle pretty quickly. They look good though. They’re making good cuts and good reads."

On what the offense needs to do over the next few weeks

“We’re definitely not game-ready yet. We need a lot more reps going against our defense to simulate the speed and flow of a game. The most important thing we can do over these next couple of weeks is get as many reps as we can against our defense."

On the defense

"Our defense is the best defense I’ve gone against during my five years at BYU. They have a lot of depth. The linebacking corps leads the way. They’re in the middle of everything; pass defense or run defense. We have a very experience group of defensive backs and defensive lineman too. Their experience and athleticism makes them tough. They give us game-like reps every day."

Linebacker Payton Wilgar (watch video)

On the defense's performance in Saturday's scrimmage

"I thought we were solid today. The ones and twos did forty plays. It was good to get some game-like action today. I felt like both offense and defense got better today. The offense gets a lot of attention. As a defense, we say every day that we need to stay humble and hungry. If we just go out there and do our jobs on Saturday, we’ll be alright.”

On the young linebackers' performance on Saturday

"All of our young guys were solid today. They were flying around making plays. Tate Romney, Micah Wilson, Bodie Schoonover and Logan Pili, they were all really good today. It was great to see them get some action."

On his health

"I feel really good. I’ve been blessed through the whole process of surgery and recovery. I’m really blessed to be where I’m at."

On how the defense can improve

"We just need to focus on doing the fundamentals, settling down and not trying to make the big plays. We need to stick to the little things and those will carry over to the big plays."

On the strength of the defense

"We’ve all been playing together for a long time. We’ve all had the same coaches since we’ve been here. The experience, chemistry and relationships we have off the field build our trust in each other and allow everyone to execute and do their jobs."