New BYU quarterbacks coach Jason Beck said during football media day in June that the two-deep chart at quarterback is pretty much set heading into fall camp: Sophomore Taysom Hill is the starter and redshirt sophomore Ammon Olsen is his primary backup.
Beck said that senior Jason Munns, Snow College transfer Christian Stewart and freshman Billy Green -- who graduated early and participated in spring ball -- would battle the first week of fall camp for the third spot.
"Christian Stewart finished spring in that [third] spot," Beck said. "We will give Munns some reps to see if he can push Stewart so we can kind of solidify that third spot. Munns got dinged up [suffered a concussi...

So the first day of BYU's 2013 preseason football camp is in the books, and it was a memorable one. With temperatures in the 90s in Provo, the Cougars went for a good three hours. There was a lot of conditioning work, as expected.
"Man, that was a tough practice," quarterback Taysom Hill said.
Overall, coach Bronco Mendenhall said he liked what he say on Day I:
"I was excited and pleased with the willingness of our team. But they fought through the rust. They certainly were not used to the pace, even though they were asked to remember, through the summer, what it was going to be like," he said. "Hard to simulate without coaches chasing, etc. So they were willing, but 'rust...

BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall said during June's football media day that the kicking game was still a huge concern for this upcoming season, despite having a senior placekicker returning in Justin Sorensen.
"Our punter, Scott Arellano, I actually feel pretty good about. I think he will do a nice job punting the football, and I think we will do a nice job protecting and covering. Our kickoffs, and our PATs and field goals, I am very concerned about," he said. "We have a junior college kicker that came in, and that will be to compete with Justin Sorensen. .... We didn't have a scholarship left for him."
That juco transfer is Trevor Samson, from Fresno City Junior College, a...

Get ready for a deluge of articles about BYU quarterback Taysom Hill over the course of the next four weeks as the Cougars open their 2013 preseason football camp on Saturday in preparation for the Aug. 31 opener at Virginia. Hill is already under the microscope as the season approaches, and it can be argued that if he has a good year, the Cougars will also. If not, BYU could miss a bowl game for the first time in the Bronco Mendenhall era.
The top task for BYU will be keeping him healthy.
I have even been working on an article about that exact thing. It will run on Saturday. The Cougars report for camp on Friday, and the first practice is Saturday afternoon. Newcomers will beg...

BYU is probably a couple of weeks away from releasing its 2013-14 men's basketball schedule, but on Monday Cougar hoops fans learned another opponent on the school's upcoming docket.
BYU will play at Stanford on Nov. 11, part of ESPN's 24-hour Tip-Off Marathon.
According to a Stanford news release, the game will be played three days after Stanford hosts Bucknell in its season opener.
The BYU-Stanford game will be played at Maples Pavilion on Stanford's campus in Palo Alto.
It will be BYU's first game at Maples since Jan. 4, 1969. The night before, BYU defeated Stanford 95-89 in the first game ever played at the facility.

With the Stanford announcement, BYU's non...

The Utah State Aggies wanted a home-and-home football arrangement with BYU. The independent BYU Cougars wanted to play their instate rivals in November to get more meaningful late-season games on their schedule.
Looks like both programs will get what they desire.
BYU and USU both announced on Friday -- about the time the Pac-12 football media day was set to begin in Los Angeles, coincidentally (or not) -- that they have modified the agreement that is set to begin this fall and originally called for one game in Logan (Friday, Oct. 4) this year and two games in Provo in 2014 and 2015.
Now, the contract calls for two games in Logan (this year, and on Nov. 28, 2015) and two ga...

Kyle Collinsworth is back -- as I am sure most BYU basketball fans are well aware -- and the sophomore-to-be is slightly bigger than when he left on his LDS Church mission to Vladivostok. He left weighing about 210 lbs., and now weighs 215. He also had a new nickname: Big Russia.
That's the tagline he left when he sent emails to his parents from the biggest mission (geographically) in the church, and it apparently has stuck.
"Everyone just started calling me that, and the coaches started calling me that, and now it is just my nickname. .. I said it, and then everyone else started saying it, and so it just stuck after that," he said.
He must like it, because his Twitter hand...

The Mountain West Conference is conducting its football media days in Las Vegas right now, and I have to admit that part of me wishes I was there, covering BYU and the rest of the league's teams and coaches as they look ahead to the 2013 season. The conference does a nice job with its media days.
Those deals don't happen for the Cougars anymore, now that they are one of four independents in college football. Navy joins a league in 2015, and then there will be just three (Army, BYU, Notre Dame).
It was always interesting to learn what the coaches and other media members thought of BYU and Utah, and where the local teams were picked to finish.
Speaking of which, the Orlando Sent...

BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe hinted that it might be coming in May when he sat down with reporters for his annual roundtable discussion on the state of the BYU athletic program which he oversees. He also referred to it last month during BYU's football media days.
Another division -- a "super division" of football programs from the top five BCS conferences (Pac-12, Big 12, SEC, ACC and Big Ten) -- could be coming to major college football.
Last week, commissioners from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) talked about the possibility, but not at length.
On Monday, however, the Big 12 football media days got underway in Dallas, and Big 12 co...

Happy Monday morning, readers.
I am back at the keyboard today after spending most of last week and the weekend on Boulder Mountain in south-central Utah reuniting with family and hooking fish (or trying to hook fish).
So let's do some catching up on the BYU sports spectrum.

BYU football coaches picked up another commitment from a member of the class of 2014, according to Scout.com. That brings the total number of commitments to 11, if my math is correct.
The latest commit is Michael Shelton, a 5-foot-8, 170-pound cornerback from Wakefield High School in Raleigh, N.C.
Shelton was also receiving interest from Oregon State, Duke, Georgia Tech and Utah. He part...

BYU's men's basketball schedule for the 2013-14 season will include Texas, it was learned on Wednesday as ESPN announced the semifinal matchups for the CBE Hall of Fame Classic in Kansas City on Nov. 25 (a Monday).
The Cougars have known they would be competing in the Classic at the Sprint Center in Kansas City for several months now, but didn't know the opponent, or time. It will be the first game of the night, tipping off at 5:30 p.m. MDT, and will be televised on ESPNU.
Texas is coming off a 16-18 season but is expected to be better this season under coach Rick Barnes. The Cougars will begin the process of replacing Los Angeles Clippers free-agent signee Brandon Davies but shou...

The first-ever meeting on the football field between BYU and MIddle Tennessee State will be televised on ESPNU, the television network and schools announced on Monday.
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. MDT on Friday, Sept. 27 in Provo.
It will be the first of three Friday night games that BYU will play this season. The Cougars play at Utah State on Friday, Oct. 4 and play host to Boise State on Friday, Oct. 25.
The announcement means that television plans have been solidified for eight of BYU's 12 games this season.
Kickoff times and TV plans for the Utah, Georgia Tech, Houston and Wisconsin games have not been announced. The Houston and Wisconsin games are on the road.
...

Another day, another couple of BYU Cougars named to college football preseason watch lists.
Monday found the 29th annual Butkus Award coming out with its Watch List, and no fewer than three BYU linebackers are on it. Notre Dame and UCLA also have three players on the Butkus Award list.
Making the list were seniors Kyle Van Noy, Spencer Hadley and Uani Unga, somewhat of a surprise considering the former Oregon State transfer has not played all that much in a Cougar uniform.
The list contains 51 candidates, but players who do not appear on the list are still considered for the postseason award.

Also Monday, Van Noy was named to the 2013 Rotary Lombardi Award Watch Lis...

When the BYU-Central Florida football series was announced back in September of 2010, the schools said that the Cougars' return visit to UCF -- after hosting the Knights in 2011 -- would be played on Sept. 6, 2014.
It became evident that the game wouldn't be played on that date a year or so ago, when the Cougars said they were playing at Texas on Sept. 6, 2014.
This weekend, it became clear when that game will be played.
Central Florida released its 2014 nonconference schedule, and the Knights say they will play host to BYU on Oct. 11 in Orlando.
That means that 11 of BYU's 12 games in 2014 are set. The schedule is listed below.
BYU defeated Central Florida 24-17...

Another BYU player has been named to a preseason watch list.
Tight end Kaneakua Friel, who will be a senior this fall, is on the watch list for the John Mackey Award, which goes to the most outstanding tight end in college football.
Around Provo, the Mackey Award is known for snubbing Dennis Pitta back in 2009 when the current Baltimore Ravens tight end was a finalist.
Winner that year?
Aaron Hernandez -- who has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons.
But back to the Mackey Award. Friel is one of 37 players on the list, as is Utah tight end Jake Murphy, a junior. Murphy, of course, signed with BYU out of high school befo...

Team USA improved to 2-0 in pool play at the World University Games early Monday morning, but BYU's Tyler Haws is off to a slow start -- and not getting a lot of minutes.
Haws played just 12 minutes and scored just two points on 1-for-4 shooting in the USA's 96-53 win over the Czech Republic in Kazan, Russia.
He also grabbed one rebound, committed a foul, and a turnover.
On Sunday, Haws played 11 minutes and was 1-for-3 from the field and 2-for-2 from the free-throw line for four points in a 140-46 win over the United Arab Emirates. He grabbed seven rebounds and handed out two assists.
The U.S. collegians will have Tuesday off, then play Sweden on Wednesday. They conclude...

BYU has been a football independent and member of the West Coast Conference in most other sports for a little more than two years now, as you surely know if you've read the articles on that subject in Saturday's Tribune.
Here's my story about how BYU officials are pleased with the route they took on Sept. 1, 2010, and some commentary on the decision from columnist Kurt Kragthorpe.
A week ago, I asked for input from reader's of this blog, and got quite a few excellent responses. A couple of them were featured in the article, near the end. Unfortunately, there were many more that couldn't be included, due to space restraints.
I've decided to publish some of the best ones here:

Looks like the Los Angeles Clippers are serious about the prospects of adding former BYU star Brandon Davies to their roster.
Davies, who went undrafted in last week's NBA Draft, has signed a free-agent deal with the Clippers.
It isn't just a standard free-agent deal, however. Sean Deveney of The Sporting News reported via Twitter that Davies signed a "partially guaranteed" one-year contract with the Clips.
Davies was disappointed that he didn't get drafted, but this way his dream stays alive. If he doesn't make the Clippers' roster, expect him to head overseas.
Davies' career stats weren't great, but his senior season he averaged 17.7 points and 8.0 rebounds per game.

Before BYU went independent in football, its fans loved scheduling news -- craving any little tidbit of information regarding which four teams the Cougars would be playing in their future nonconference schedules.
Now that the Cougars are independent and have 12 games to fill each season, that desire for scheduling information is simply off the hook. So says athletic director Tom Holmoe, who noted during BYU Football Media Day last week that he gets hundreds of emails a year from BYU fans with suggestions about who the Cougars should play, and when. Holmoe said he works on scheduling 365 days a year.
Last Friday, I wrote this story for the newspaper about how one of the three ma...

Two years ago today, BYU officially became a college football independent (although the announcement that it was doing so came on Sept. 1, 2010) and put most of its other sports in the West Coast Conference. Oddly enough, the WCC welcomes another member today, as University of the Pacific (UOP) re-joins the league after a lengthy absence. The WCC now has 10 schools.
In some circles, BYU's seemingly bold decision to bolt the Mountain West Conference and go rogue in football is still being called at experiment.
At least, that's what respected national college sports writer Pat Forde called it in this piece this morning on Yahoo! Sports' website.
Deep in the article, Forde ...

For the first time since Devin Durrant in 1983, a member of the BYU men's basketball team will represent the United States of America in an international basketball competition.
Rising junior Tyler Haws was selected on Saturday morning to the 12-member Team USA club that will compete in the World University Games next month in Kazan, Russia.
Haws survived the final cut as coaches trimmed the roster from 16 players to 12 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Haws and his 11 new teammates will continue to train in the Springs through Sunday, and will depart for Russia on Tuesday.
Team USA will practice on July 3-6 in Kazan and will scrimmage on July...

I mentioned several times on Twitter (@drewjay) yesterday how much BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall joked during BYU Football Media Day. Relaxed and engaging, Mendenhall smiled and laughed more on Wednesday than in the five previous pre-season football media events I have covered so far (three in the Mountain West, two as an independent).
As several folks mentioned after my tweets yesterday, a new contract will do that to a person. But I think there is more to it than that. Mendenhall seems to be making a conscious effort to let his guard down a little bit more, be more personable, and not so much of an introvert.

Usually, Bronco deals with the media like he has a bus to cat...

As you've undoubtedly read or seen by now, BYU had three rather significant announcements at its third-annual Football Media Day today at the BYU Broadcast Building on campus.
1) Coach Bronco Mendenhall signed a three-year contract extension which keeps him at BYU through the 2016 season.
2) BYU and USC have agreed to a three-game series, with the first game in 2019 in Provo and the second and third games in Los Angeles.
3) BYU has accepted an invitation to play in the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego in 2015 and one more year before 2020.
You can read my recap of those three announcements here, and Tribune columnist Kurt Kragthorpe's take on Mendenhall's extension here. Bro...

While BYU was announcing football coach Bronco Mendenhall's contract extension on Wednesday morning, the school's best basketball player was also receiving some good news.
Junior guard Tyler Haws survived the cut at the Team USA tryouts at the U.S. Olympic Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and moved a step closer to making the team that will represent the U.S. at the World University Games in Russia next month.
Haws was named one of 16 finalists for the team. The final cut, when the roster will be trimmed to 12 players, will come before July 1 when the team leaves for the tournament to be held July 7-16 in Kazan, Russia.
The training camp runs through Sunday, with two prac...

Two more members of the class of 2014 -- players who will be seniors in high school this fall -- have committed to the BYU football program, bringing the total to nine.
Teancum "Tico" Fuga, younger brother of former BYU noseguard Romney Fuga, committed to BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall on Monday night. Teancum Fuga is a 6-foot-2, 320-pound defensive end from Edison High in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Over the weekend, the Cougars received a commitment from Sione Takitaki, a 6-foot-3, 240-pound defensive end from Menifee, Calif., and Heritage High School.

Fuga is expected to go on an LDS Church mission prior to enrolling at BYU. He reportedly had offers from Utah Sta...

If they become bowl-eligible with six wins or more this season -- not a gimme considering the difficulty of the schedule -- the BYU Cougars will play in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl on Dec. 27 at AT&T; Park in San Francisco.
What about 2014, and beyond?
Certainly, the Cougars won't be returning to the KFH Bowl, which moves to the new San Francisco 49ers stadium in Santa Clara (Levi's Stadium). That's because the bowl announced Monday that it will pit foes from the Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences for six straight years, beginning in 2014.
The Holiday Bowl in San Diego also made an announcement Monday, saying the Big Ten will replace the Big 12 and face a Pac-12 opponent in th...

Happy Monday, everyone.
I'm back in the blogger saddle today, after a being off a good chunk of time in June.
BYU will hold its football media day on Wednesday at the BYU Broadcast Building, which will obviously be the big news of the week.
But a pair of basketball players who helped the Cougars make it to the NIT semifinals a few months ago could also be in the spotlight, at least locally.

The NBA Draft is Thursday, and Brandon Davies could be picked in the second round. I wouldn't have written that sentence in March, but Davies' performance at the Portsmouth Invitational (he earned MVP honors) and then at the NBA Combine in Chicago moved him into the picture. ...

BYU is probably a month away from announcing its 2013-14 men's basketball schedule, but today we learned the Cougars' opener will be against instate rival Weber State.
The Wildcats released their nonconference schedule, which includes a Nov. 9 game against BYU in Provo.
That's the same day BYU's football team will be in Madison, Wis., to take on Gary Andersen's Badgers. Kickoff time and television plans for the BYU-Wisconsin football game have not be announced, but it will presumably be played around 11 a.m. MDT and the basketball game will likely tip off at 7 p.m.
It will be the second time in three years that BYU has opened a basketball season against an instate foe. In 201...

The list of BYU football commitments from the class of 2014 grew by two over the weekend as coach Bronco Mendenhall and his staff wrapped up Junior Day activities on Friday.
The latest players who will be high school seniors this fall to commit to BYU are offensive linemen Austin Chambers and Chandon Herring.
Chambers did not attend Junior Day, but made the commitment via telephone from his home in Shawnee Mission, Kan. He picked the Cougars over an offer from Kansas.
Chambers is 6-foot-5, 285 pounds. He is expected to sign next February, but leave on an LDS Church mission before enrolling. With the LDS Church having changed its missionary age minimum to 18, almost every p...

Catching up on some BYU sports-related items after tromping through southeastern and southwestern Utah the past few days on my quest to play all 121 golf courses in Utah:

* Rising BYU football seniors Kyle Van Noy and Cody Hoffman are starting to make some preseason All-America teams, as expected.
Magazine predictions guru Phil Steele came out with his 2013 Preseason All-America Team on Wednesday, and Van Noy was a first-team selection. Hoffman earned second-team honors.
BYU was one of only nine programs with players named to both the first and second teams.

* The major league baseball draft begins tonight (Thursday) and BYU outfielder Jacob Hanneman -- who i...

BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe spent more than an hour with local reporters on Wednesday in his annual "State of BYU Sports" roundtable discussion -- about 56 minutes with all of us and then 14 or so more minutes in front of television cameras.
I plan on going in-depth on almost everything Holmoe said today, every question he answered, in the coming days in this blog space.
Until then, here's a quick roundup of the highlights:

* The first question was about football coach Bronco Mendenhall's contract status, as expected. Mendenhall's current three-year deal expires at the end of the 2013 season. Holmoe said BYU has not offered the coach a new contract yet, but is workin...

BYU has a new Director of Basketball Operations.
Tuesday, coach Dave Rose announced that Cody Fueger will replace Mike Hall, who will become an academic advisor in the Student Athlete Academic Center.
Fueger (pronounced: FEE-ger) arrives at BYU from Utah State, where he was director of basketball ops last season. Fueger also served as DBO at UC Riverside and at Louisiana Tech. He graduated from the University of Utah, where he was the video coordinator and a student assistant for five years.
"Cody brings great experience to our program," Rose said in a school news release. "He has a terrific track record in the business and has earned the trust of several great coaches. H...

The Atlantic Coast Conference and ESPN announced Thursday that the season-opening BYU-at-Virginia football game will have a 1:30 p.m. MDT kickoff (3:30 p.m. ET in Charlottesville) and will be televised by ESPNU.
The game will be played on Saturday, Aug. 31 -- which is 100 days away.
So far, times and television broadcast plans have been finalized for five BYU football games in 2013.
Here they are:

Aug. 31 -- BYU at Virginia, 1:30 p.m. MDT, ESPNU

Sept. 7 -- Texas at BYU, TBA

Sept. 14 -- BYE

Sept. 21 -- Utah at BYU, TBA

Sept. 27 (Friday) -- Middle Tennessee State at BYU, TBA

Oct. 4 (Friday) -- BYU at Utah State, 6 ...

After weeks of speculation and rumor regarding the future of BYU forward Agustin Ambrosino, the junior college transfer from Salt Lake Community College, the school confirmed Wednesday afternoon that the affable Argentinian will not be returning for his senior season.
Where Ambrosino will play next is unknown.
Contacted Wednesday, Ambrosino said he is leaving the program because he was told he would not be eligible to play next season.
"The only thing that I am aware of is that I failed only one class this semester and they told me I can't play next season," he noted in a message sent from his hometown of Cordoba, Argentina. "I found out two days before I had my plane ticket t...

A few days after securing a commitment from a Wake Forest transfer who will not be able to play for the Cougars until 2014-15, BYU basketball coaches landed a player on Monday who is eligible to play right away.
Frank Bartley, a 6-foot-3 combo guard from Baton Rouge, La., who played at a prep school in California last season, gave BYU a commitment over the weekend, according to the website verbalcommits.com.
Bartley played for Future College Prep of Carson, Calif., and helped the team go 52-13 and win the West Coast Prep School Championship. He averaged 19 points and 8.5 rebounds per game, while dishing out 6.7 assists and collecting 3.3 steals.

Bartley's pending sign...

The BYU basketball team is getting some much-needed 3-point shooting help, but coach Dave Rose won't be able to enjoy his latest addition until the 2014-15 season.
Chase Fischer, a 6-foot-3 shooting guard from Ripley, West Virginia, who played the last two seasons at Wake Forest, announced Friday night that he is transferring to BYU. Fischer will have to sit out the 2013-14 season, due to NCAA transfer rules, and will have two seasons to play two for the Cougars.
Fischer's tie to BYU is assistant coach Mark Pope, who recruited him to Wake Forest when Pope was on that ACC school's coaching staff.
According to the Charleston (W.V.) Daily Mail newspaper, Fischer had narrowed his ...

A flurry of BYU basketball news broke on Thursday afternoon, some of it good, and some of it bad.
First, the good news:
Former BYU center Brandon Davies has been invited to participate in next week's NBA Draft Combine in Chicago.
While not exactly a surprise, given how he performed at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament last month, earning MVP honors, Davies was not a sure thing to make the list. So that's great news for the Provo High graduate, projected by some to be a late second-round pick in June's NBA Draft.
Here's the 60-player list, courtesy of Jeff Goodman and CBSSports.com. It should probably be noted that two of the best players in the West Coast Conference...

Another player that BYU basketball coach Dave Rose was heavily pursuing to add size and athleticism to his 2013-14 team has chosen to go in a different direction.
Tanner Lancona, a 6-foot-8 power forward and high school senior from Southern California (Orange County) recently picked Saint Louis over BYU, Colorado State, Kansas State and others.
Lancona signed with Washington State last November, but was released from his scholarship by coach Ken Bone and re-opened his recruitment.
He was considered the prize of WSU's 2013 recruiting class before the release and is a three-star recruit, according to Scout.com.
Lancona averaged 19 points and 11 rebounds for Tesoro High l...

At about 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, it was one down, one to go for BYU sports fans.
BYU's rugby team earned the school's first championship of the day, beating California 27-24 at South Field in Provo for the Varsity Cup national rugby championship. At 7 p.m. MDT tonight, BYU will meet UC Irvine in the NCAA men's volleyball national championship match.
In the rugby match, the inaugural Varsity Cup, freshman Jonny Linehan scored with no time left to break a 24-24 tie and give the Cougars their second-straight national title. BYU beat Arkansas State 49-42 to win the title last year at Sandy's Rio Tinto Stadium.
Linehan, who was named the game's MVP, accounted for 22 of BYU's ...

BYU basketball coaches received some bad news on Wednesday night when SLCC basketball star Sai Tummala, whom they were heavily recruiting, said he will sign with his hometown school, Arizona State. Tummala had BYU and Arizona State in his final four or five schools, along with Nebraska and Miami of Ohio.
"Committed to be an Arizona State Sun Devil! I am extremely blessed to have this opportunity," Tummala noted on his Twitter account Thursday morning.

----------------

This is a big weekend for BYU sports, with the men's rugby team taking on Cal on Saturday at South Field in Provo for the national championship, and the men's volleyball team playing in the Final Four ...

Sai Tummala says he is getting close to deciding which Division I college basketball program he will play for next fall.
He's just not sure how close.
I was able to reach Tummala on the phone briefly on Tuesday afternoon, and the Salt Lake Community College star said he hoped to have had made a decision by the end of April, but it appears that might not happen now. He said some things have changed recently -- he declined to say what happened, exactly -- and that the changes have caused him to take a step back and reconsider a few options.
As I noted in this space 12 days ago, BYU coach Dave Rose is recruiting Tummala rather intensely, hoping the 6-foot-6, 212-pound native of P...

The NFL Draft ended on Saturday night with only one BYU player getting drafted -- defensive end Ezekiel "Ziggy" Ansah.
But shortly after the draft ended, word started to get out about several free agent signings.
Here's the working list:
* BYU offensive tackle Braden Brown signed a free-agent contract with the Saint Louis Rams.
* BYU middle linebacker Brandon Ogletree signed a free-agent contract with the Miami Dolphins.
* BYU middle linebacker Uona Kaveigna signed a free-agent contract with the Denver Broncos.

* BYU offensive lineman Braden Hansen signed a free-agent contract with the Oakland Raiders.

* Defensive tackle Romney Fuga on Sunday joined K...

When BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall met NFL Draft pick Ziggy Ansah's mother, Elizabeth Cole, on Thursday for the first time, he had some explaining to do.
Mendenhall held a teleconference with reporters on Friday morning from New York, and took a question from yours truly about whether Ziggy's mother understands how big of a deal her son has become in this country.
Mendenhall said that Ansah's mother asked him last night why her son couldn't be drafted by the NFL team in Utah.
"I explained that we don't have an [NFL] team in Utah, and then she started to ask why. Just her understanding of the NFL, and the opportunities, and what is going to be at stake, and what...

BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall is in New York City this week, attending the NFL Draft at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday where star defensive end Ezekiel "Ziggy" Ansah is expected to be picked early in the first round.
But it is another draft, which will take place June 6-8, that could also draw a lot of Mendenhall's attention. That's when the 2013 Major League Baseball draft will be held, and when Mendenhall could lose a potential starting cornerback.
Here's the story:
BYU's Jacob Hannemann, the two-sport star from nearby Lone Peak High, is currently shining for the BYU baseball team, after redshirting for the football team last fall and becoming a vital scout team...

A former Oregon State football star who played briefly for BYU in 1993 died last week at the age of 37 after a five-year battle with cancer.
Tevita Moala, dubbed "The Tenacious Tongan" by many in his hometown of Hawthorne, Calif., originally attended BYU out of Hawthorne High and was a 5-10, 185-pound defensive back during the 1993 season, according to BYU's media guide.
Moala saw action in three games for BYU before suffering a season-ending injury.
After a church mission to the Philippines, Moala returned to BYU in 1997, but didn't play that year and transferred to El Camino College in California.
He shined at OSU from 1999-2000. A linebacker at OSU, he played on the sc...

The University of San Diego's five-year stranglehold on the West Coast Conference Commissioner's Cup -- awarded annually to the WCC institution with the most success in conference play -- is in serious jeopardy.
BYU increased its lead to 11.5 points in the race for the 2012-13 Cup with decent finishes in men's and women's golf and tennis recently.
BYU now has 71.0 points through April's events and leads Santa Clara (59.5) after the Broncos won a share of the women's tennis regular season title. San Diego is just behind Santa Clara, with 59.0 points.
In the men's race, BYU is in second place with 29.0 points, three behind leader Saint Mary's College (32.0 points).
In th...

When the signing period for Division I college basketball began on Wednesday, BYU basketball coaches filled one of their two known scholarship openings, landing Salt Lake Community College guard Skyler Halford. You can read more about Halford's signing here.
But what about the second scholarship? Will they fill that soon as well? When he met with beat writers who cover BYU basketball on Tuesday, coach Dave Rose said they are targeting four or five other guys.
One of those players with a BYU offer in hand is Sai Tummala, Halford's teammate at SLCC. Tummala is a 6-foot-6, 212-pounder who originally attended Michigan and redshirted his freshman season in Ann Arbor.
He averaged 14...

As you may or may not have noticed, I took some time off the past week or so, what with BYU's basketball season ending and 2013 football spring camp reaching its conclusion on April 5.
I'm back at it today, however, so it is time for a quick recap of BYU sports-related news and notes you might have missed.

The Tribune unveiled its All-State Boys Basketball Teams in today's newspaper, and BYU-bound Nick Emery of Lone Peak is the 5A MVP. Utah State-bound Jalen Moore of Sky View is the 4A MVP.
Three other BYU-bound prospects -- Lone Peak's Eric Mika and T.J. Haws (a junior) and Orem's Dalton Nixon (also a junior) -- made the first teams in 5A and 4A, respectively.
How g...

Two weeks after their season ended in the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden, BYU basketball players, coaches and others celebrated the season with their annual awards banquet on Tuesday night at the Provo Marriott.
The team's two leading scorers, Tyler Haws and Brandon Davies, shared the Outstanding Player Award and seniors Davies, Brock Zylstra and Craig Cusick were honored with framed jerseys.
Davies, of course, had just returned from playing in the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, where he led his team to the championship (3-0) and was named the PIT MVP. He averaged 20.7 points and 9.3 rebounds in the three games, while shooting 67.6 percent from the field.

...

The worst-kept secret in Provo was revealed on Wednesday afternoon as BYU released its post-spring camp depth chart. Sophomore Taysom Hill is the starting quarterback, and sophomore Ammon Olsen is his primary backup.
There was some speculation that Snow College transfer Christian Stewart had overtaken Olsen in the latter stages of camp, combined with Olsen's PCL injury suffered in the Blue/White Game, but Olsen holds on to the No. 2 spot, for now.
"We have named Taysom the starter because of his game experience in 2012, strong leadership qualities and his breakaway speed and athleticism," BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said in a school news release. "Ammon had a phenomenal spring. I a...