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PROVO — To quote head coach Kalani Sitake at least eight times this year, the BYU football team’s woes are becoming a broken record.
But the Cougars’ 20-13 loss at Fresno State late Saturday night that guaranteed the program’s first losing season since 2004 came with a heftier cost.
Quarterback Tanner Mangum was forced out for the season in the fourth quarter with a non-contact injury that ruptured his Achilles’ tendon, and the junior signal-caller is done for the year.
“It sucks to have a guy work so hard to come back from the first injury to have to go out again,” wide receiver Micah Simon said. “I’m praying for him, and I feel for him. But it’s the next man up mentality; we have to see Beau and Joe to carry us through. We’ll lean on them, and they’ll lean on us. We’ll be fine.”
So where does BYU go at quarterback now?
“Unsure” may be the best word to describe it, Sitake said during his weekly press briefing Monday in Provo.
Backup quarterbacks Beau Hoge and Joe Critchlow were listed as co-starters on the weekly depth chart, and Sitake said there is a chance redshirt candidate Kody Wilstead — the former Region 9 standout from Pine View — could begin his collegiate career as the Cougars’ prepare for the final three games of the season Friday at UNLV.
“We have to rally around our guys. We’re looking at our quarterback situation right now with Beau and Joe as an open competition, and we’ll play the best one. Kody Wilstead will be in the mix, too. That’s what it comes down to right now. “We’ll see who deserves to be the starter and to take the first snaps this weekend. That will be established throughout the week.”
Critchlow is more similar to the pro-style quarterback of Mangum, who finishes his junior season with 1,540 passing yards and eight touchdowns. Critchlow, a true freshman from Franklin, Tennessee, who recently returned from a two-year mission for the LDS Church in Montreal, Quebec, has played in three games and thrown for 59 yards at a 55 percent completion rate.
Hoge has the experience factor, taking the primary backup role coming out of fall camp. The redshirt sophomore from Fort Thomas, Kentucky, is a 49-percent passer with 257 yards and two touchdowns with three interceptions — but also adds a mobility element to the Cougars.
“He has a little more mobility and zone-read type of stuff,” Simon said. “With our run game, it creates a little different element for defenses to worry about. We’ll see how we can implement that in the game plan.”
Running back Austin Kafentzis will also continue to see various Wildcat packages at quarterback, too. When asked about redshirt sophomore quarterback Koy Detmer Jr., Sitake declined to enumerate on his potential to see first-team reps this week.
“The only thing that matters right now is winning this next game,” Sitake said. “Everything factors into it: experience vs inexperience, ability to run versus throw, how they manage the offense. All of that stuff matters.”
🎥: TE Matt Bushman made the play of the day in the @BYUfootball scrimmage with this 65-yard TD catch from QB Kody Wilstead (@Wilstead13) pic.twitter.com/v80a04xgOO
— Brandon Judd (@brandonljudd) March 25, 2017
Homecoming game
BYU has one player from Las Vegas on its roster that will be playing in front of a home crowd Friday night in an 8:30 p.m. MT kickoff at Sam Boyd Stadium.
Defensive lineman Trajan Pili prepped at Centennial High School in North Las Vegas, and he played against current UNLV coach Tony Sanchez when the third-year Rebels coach was coaching at nearby Bishop Gorman.
“I expect a lot of family. It’s a fun week for me,” Pili said. “I have a lot of friends on the team, and I know the head coach from when he was a high school coach when I was in high school.
“It will be good to see some familiar faces.”
Depth chart notes
BYU’s injury struggles have led to plenty of shuffling on the two-deep, as well as other factors. With Mangum’s season-ending injury, 36 different players have missed at least one game with an injury in 2017, including 24 players on the two-deep and 13 projected starters.
Running back Ula Toluta’u, the former East High standout who was cited for possession of a controlled substance a month ago in Orem was also not listed on the depth chart. Squally Canada is the projected starter at tailback, KJ Hall could return at H-back, and brothers Brayden El-Bakri and Bracken El-Bakri are listed atop the fullback spot.
Linebackers Butch Pau’u and Fred Warner, who were both saddled with injuries in recent weeks, also returned to their starting roles Saturday.
