-- Our secondary, er, secondary players have not played a lot of snaps
Today we look at BYU’s backups and see how many snaps they've played in their careers compared to the starters at their position.
For example, say Keanu Hill has played 1,200 career snaps and his backup Parker Kingston has played 120. Under this scenario you could say Kingston is 10% as experienced as Hill, right? The higher the percentage, the more experienced BYU's "next man up" is, or to put it in the half-glass empty way, the lower the percentage, the greater the drop-off in experience between the starter and his replacement.
Note that this post won't really attempt to determine how "good" these backups are, just how much they've seen the field.
Let's get to it. All snaps referred to below represent career snaps. Some players coming form the JUCO/FCS world have snap numbers, some don't. To see the 2022 version, click here.
QUARTERBACKS
Starter: Kedon Slovis (2,443 snaps)
Backups: Jake Retzlaff (0 FBS snaps, 0%)
How do we quantify Kedon’s ridiculous amount of experience playing college football? Consider this. Last year Jaren Hall – who seemed experienced to me, given it was his second year starting and he’d seen spot action all the way back to 2019 – started the season with only 824 snaps to his name. Slovis comes into his senior year with triple the amount of exposure that Hall had at the beginning of last season. Of course, Hall also had been enrolled in the ARod school of BYU quarterbacking for much longer than Slovis will have been, so I’m not sure how that experience changes the playing field. What we do know is that if Slovis goes down, we turn to a quarterback who has never played a down of FBS level football, let alone Big 12 football. How would his JUCO experience translate? TBD.
Depth Status: extremely shallow
RUNNING BACKS
Starters: Aidan Robbins (606 snaps), Deion Smith (423)
Backups: LJ Martin (0, 0%), Miles Davis (132, 26%)
What a weird group we have here: two mercenaries, one rookie, and a guy who went wild against Wyoming last year. Losing Hinckley Ropati from this group sucks, but all the talk this fall has been about LJ Martin. He’s one injury away from seeing some significant playing time. If he’s as good as rumored, it won’t really matter that he’s snapless.
Depth Status: Inexperienced, but rumored to have skillzzz
TIGHT ENDS
Starters: Isaac Rex (2,006), Mata’ava Ta’ase (0 FBS snaps, 0%)
Backups: Ethan Erickson (94, 5%), Jackson Bowers (0, 0%), Anthony Olsen (0, 0%)
Remember, we’re talking about experience, not talent. This group might be very talented. Rex is a known commodity and 3rd stringer Jackson Bowers turned down basically everybody to play at BYU. And mystery man Mata’ava bumped him on the depth chart! But experience wise, whoa is this group one Rex injury away from having a group of newbies on the field. I’ll be forever bummed that 2018 BIFF winner Dallin Holker took his talents to Fort Collins.
Depth Status: Rookies be waiting in the wings
FULLBACKS
Starter: Mason Fakahua (23 snaps)
Backup: Ray Paulo (0 FBS, 0%)
Who are these guys?
Depth Status: Can you divide zero by zero?
WIDE RECEIVERS
Starters: Keanu Hill (1,102 snaps), Keelan Marion (702), Kody Epps (370)
Backups: Darius Lassiter (519, 72%), Chase Roberts (372, 51%), Parker Kingston (9, 1%)
Transfer portal to the rescue. Imagine what this group looks like if you delete Lassiter, Marion, and Epps from it. In such a scenario Parker Kingston with 9 snaps to his name becomes our #3 receiver. The portal giveth and the portal taketh away, but for this particular position group it saved bacon. Losing a guy or two looks much more palatable when you consider our 4th and 5th receivers each have a few hundred snaps under their belt. I’ve been running this exercise for three years now and this is the most experience our backup WRs have had in that time period.
Status: Our first position of strength so far
OFFENSIVE LINE
Starting Tackles: Kingsley Suamataia (687 snaps), Caleb Etienne (1,039)
Starting Guards: Weylin Lapuaho (692), Connor Pay (1,509)
Starting Center: Paul Maile (1,166)
Backups: Simi Moala (1,266, 100%), Ian Fitzgerald (0 FBS, 0%) Brayden Keim (189, 18%), Peter Falaniko (0, 0%)
The turnover in this group is nuts. At the end of last year BYU bid adieu to a “I need to doublecheck my math it seems too high” 8,580 snaps of offensive line experience courtesy of the Barrington transfers and the LaChance, Tukuafu and Freeland graduations. How do you begin to replace that? You transfer in 1,039 snaps from Etienne, 692 snaps from Lapuaho, 1,166 snaps from Paul Maile, 1,266 snaps from Moala, and 2,069 albeit FCS snaps from Fitzgerald. Three of those plug-and-play transfers ended up as plug-and-play starters, locking down first string spots on the offensive line. This means we have three backups (Moala, Fitz, and Keim) with relatively decent experience. I like what I see here – keep the offensive line stocked and success will follow.
Depth Status: About as deep as a Zach Wilson long ball
DEFENSIVE LINE
Starting Defensive Ends: Tyler Batty (1,070), Isaiah Bagnah (808)
Starting Defensive Tackles: Atunaisa Mahe (731), Jackson Cravens (929)
Backup Ends: Blake Mangelson (280, 32%), Michael Daley (0, 0%)
Backup Tackles: Caden Haws (991, 100+%), John Nelson (767, 87%)
For the third year in a row this position is deep; the 6th man up is John Nelson who has 767 snaps to his name. And for the third year in a row I don’t know if a single player from this group is good at all. Is the reason Tuiaki ran those hockey substitutions due to the fact that all starters and backups were the same skill level?
Depth Status: The well is deep but the water is not fit for consumption
LINEBACKER
Starting Linebackers: AJ Vongphachanh (1,954), Ben Bywater (1,384), Max Tooley (1,542)
Backup Linebackers: Fisher Jackson (303, 19%), Harrison Taggart (9, 1%) Ammon Hannemann (639, 39%) Chaz Ah You (919, 57%), Isaiah Glasker (14, 1%)
I’m curious to see how the linebacker rotations materialize throughout the year. The starters are absolutely loaded with experience, while the backups are a mixed bag (Taggart and Glasker newbies; Hannemann and Ah You grizzled vets). I was a huge Keenan Pili fan and am not at all surprised to see him get a starting nod at Tennessee. He will be missed.
Trivia question: What was Chaz Ah You’s first game? If you said Portland State all the way back in 2017, congratulations.
Depth Status: Mixed, but I’m comfortable with most of the backup options
CORNERS
Starting Corners: Jakob Robinson (1,097), Eddie Heckard (2,581), Kamden Garrett (1,277)
Backup Corners: Evan Johnson (5, 0%), Mory Bamba (13, 0%), Caleb Christensen (117, 9%)
Look we knew this position group was treading on thin ice but even I didn’t realize how big an experience drop-off we’re talking until I saw the numbers. The three starters combine for a total of 4,955 snaps; their replacements combine for … 135. I’m not sure I’ve seen a disparity as large as the one between Heckard (2,581 snaps) and his backup Bamba (13 snaps).
Depth Status: Gods of health, we beseech thee this day
SAFETIES
Starting Safeties: Malik Moore (1,270), Ethan Slade (131)
Backup Safeties: Crew Wakley (0,0%), Raider Damuni (0,0%), Tanner Wall (0,0%)
And you thought the cornerback position was in dire straits. This is the first time in the three years of running this project that the immediate backups have zero experience.
Depth Status: Remember when Liberty scored 100 on us? This year could be worse.
ASIDE NUMBER ONE
We have four starters in the secondary (Robinson, Slade, Moore, and Heckard) who are backed up by players with zero, zero, 5, and 13 snaps in their career. That is not great. Getting those guys some experience in the Sam Houston and SUU games will be key.
ASIDE NUMBER TWO
Eddie Heckard with 2,581 career snaps is the most experienced player we’ve had on the team going back to the 2021 season when I started this project. By my count we’ve only had two other players pass the 2,000 snap mark (James Empey heading into the 2021 season, Kedon Slovis heading into this season)
ASIDE NUMBER THREE
Of the 11 most frequently used players from the 2022 defense, 4 have left the team (GJL, Pili, Hayes, Fauatea), 1 is out for the season (Harper), and one is injured for an unspecified amount of time (Alfrey). On the one hand you could take this information and think, “eh, our defense was a turd last season so losing those guys won’t make us any worse”. On the other hand, you could take this information and think, “Wow, we were bad last year and we lost the player who had the most sacks (Fauatea), the most pass breakups (GJL), and a guy who now starts for Tennessee. Gulp.”
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