BYU Football Concludes Fall Camp With Third Scrimmage

PROVO, Utah – BYU football fall camp is a wrap. On Tuesday, the Cougars completed Camp Kalani with a third and final scrimmage at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

#BYU closed fall camp with a scrimmage today at LES. The second scrimmage in four days.

Kalani: "I really like what we got from it."#BYUFootball

— Mitch Harper (@Mitch_Harper) August 23, 2022

The scrimmage was BYU’s second in four days. It hasn’t been common in the Kalani Sitake era for BYU to scrimmage that often. But Sitake felt it was important to simulate real football before the season opener at USF on September 3.

“Talking to the coaches and for what I want to see, it just seemed like, if you want to get good at football, then you practice football,” said Sitake via Zoom on Tuesday. “If you want to be good at MMA fighting or boxing, then you spar. I mentioned this before, like really deliberately doing things in practice different than we’ve done in other times. In a way, you put guys in harm’s way by playing 11 on 11 football, but we have to get better at that. I don’t know how else to do it other than to get better at football.”

BYU football players were ‘probably sore’ after third scrimmage

Sitake did feel his team that’s coming off back-to-back double-digit win seasons did get better during the third scrimmage of camp.

Kalani: "We're sick of playing each other. We are ready to play somebody else."#BYU #BYUFootball

— Mitch Harper (@Mitch_Harper) August 23, 2022

“I liked the fact that we got to be in the stadium again,” said Sitake. “It’s been hard on our guys the last week actually being able to go and do a bunch of plays here on Saturday and then come back on Tuesday. So I think their legs are probably sore, but we’ll get them back. We will get some good lifts and we’ll start to recover.”

BYU ended the scrimmage with some situational scenarios in the red zone. In total, Sitake estimated that BYU ran 100 plays in the scrimmage.

“There were some opportunities to put our guys in tough spots, our offense and our defense in tough spots. I just liked the way our guys responded,” Sitake said. “We just threw a bunch of things at them and tried to create some chaos, and I thought they handled everything the right way.”

There’s work to be done for the BYU offense

There was no tackling to the ground during the scrimmage as BYU tries to be smart with their personnel and keep them as healthy as possible for the opener.

Sitake said that no players during camp suffered a season-ending injury.

Some of BYU’s key offensive personnel had a light workload, including tight end Isaac Rex, fullback Masen Wake, and running back Chris Brooks.

Despite the limited work from those key guys, BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick said, “We still have a lot of work to do. We’re nowhere near ready for a game yet, but we’ll be ready a week from Saturday, but we’re not there yet.”

BYU shored up a critical position battle at strong safety on the defensive side. Defensive coordinator Ilaisa Tuiaki said that Ammon Hannemann would be the starter with Micah Harper behind him in the second string.

Hannemann appeared in 10 games last season, starting in four. The former Lone Peak standout will be alongside Malik Moore in BYU’s starting safety group.

BYU football will now begin practicing in the mid-afternoon/evenings as they transition into the season. Along with gearing up for USF, players will also need to prepare for school, which begins the fall semester on Monday.

Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for KSLsports.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.

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