Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Wednesday is National Signing Day day. It is the culmination of a football program's exhaustive efforts to convince star high school athletes that they can succeed best at their institution.
The BYU focus was on the big boys in the trenches. They recruited eight offensive linemen, pulling four from the junior college ranks. Future center Brayden Kearsley highlighted the NSD list.
My gut tells me it's going to be a lot of fun coaching that kid.
–Robert Anae, BYU offensive coordinator
"My gut tells me it's going to be a lot of fun coaching that kid." said Anae with a wry smile.
Bronco Mendenhall's biggest signing this year may be Robert Anae. The successful re-recruiting of Anae led to the specific agenda of bolstering the offensive line.
I think that we're going to be bringing BYU back to where it used to be, and putting points on the board, and helping out that #3 defense in the country
–Brayden Kearsley, BYU Offensive Lineman
Upon Anae's return, Kearsley quickly became BYU's number one focus. He had been recruited by a dozen teams including Oregon, UCLA, Tennessee, UCLA and Utah and although it looked like Oregon St. was going to be the winner, an 11th hour recruiting trip by Anae tipped the scales in the Cougars' favor.
"Coach Anae came by, and he really changed the way I thought about the offensive line" said Kearsley, "He and Coach Poppinga really got on me hard and were just straightforward and just told me ‘Hey, we need you to lead the line when you get here and work your tail off,'
Kearsley likes Anae's coaching philosophy, "He told me in my visit, ‘There's no time for a huddle in football, we're just going to go.' That's really fun to me, I mean it's going to be a fun offense to play in, a no-huddle, high-paced offense… I think that we're going to be bringing BYU back to where it used to be, and putting points on the board, and helping out that #3 defense in the country, and that's going to be huge."
The eccentric Kearsley is a stark contrast to the conservative duo of Anae and Mendenhall. He became a twitter lightening rod when he took a snapshot of himself burning a recruitment letter from the University of Utah.
"Oh man, I have a blast with that stuff." said Kearsley, "I think it's hilarious when fans get on me. I just laugh my tail off. I mean, I'm just a kid, and I'm just having fun with high school right now. Some recruits are like ‘Oh, coaches are watching me,' and that stuff. I just try to keep it as clean as possible. I'm just a kid, having fun with that Twitter stuff. I mean, it's so easy to get under Utah fans, it's so funny. I like it. That burning the letter thing was pretty funny."
Despite the occasional colorful language that occasionally speckles his twitter account, Kearsley understands the expectations of signing with BYU. "BYU has a great program and a great institute. I'm just really excited to get down there and the spiritual part of BYU is unbelievable. I think that's really a big part. On my visit we had a Sacrament Meeting on Sunday, and I don't think you can get that anywhere else. I know for a fact I went on visits and never got that anywhere else. Sunday morning was our sleep-in day on my visits."
Mendenhall loves that the "socially-conservative" recruits are drawn to the spiritual focus of the football program. "One young man on his recruiting trip this past weekend-I think we were his fifth visit-he said, we (BYU) were the only visit where he didn't ever see alcohol. Kids like that, want to be here."
Kearsley comes from a football family and comes to BYU with high expectations for himself, "I have some really big goals for myself, but I've got bigger goals for my team. I want to be All-American someday, and hopefully Rimington Trophy winner (awarded to the nation's top center), but that doesn't even matter. If that doesn't happen, I don't care, as long as I help lead BYU to accomplish our goals. Coach Mendenhall stresses that he knows we can go to a BCS Championship game."
