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by Brent Johnson, BYU Athletic Communications
PROVO, Utah (Aug. 21, 2006)--Two-a-days concluded Monday as BYU continues to progress toward its first game just 12 days away.
"We are starting to get a good idea about where we are," BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall said. "We will scrimmage Wednesday morning and will have a very good idea about depth and the travel squad for our first Arizona practice Friday."
In the open morning session, the team started with position-specific drills before having two separate team drill segments. The first team drill focused on the running game and play action pass.
In the second team drill, the Cougars worked on Blue Zone offense. In the first Blue Zone possession, the first team offense used six plays to punch the ball in the end zone. John Beck completed a touchdown pass to Manase Tonga.
After the initial touchdown, the defense kept the offense out of the end zone on the remaining five series. Jared McLaughlin was successful on 3-of-4 field goal attempts. His only missed field goal was from outside 50 yards.
In a new wrinkle, the Cougars integrated special teams play into the offense, working on field goals and kickoffs in between Blue Zone possessions.
"Based on problems integrating special teams and regular team drills we saw at our scrimmage Saturday, we have decided to integrate the special teams play with our team drills from now on," Mendenhall said.
In the evening practice session, the Cougars focused their team drills on the two-minute offense. The offense started each drive on their own 20 with 55 seconds on the game clock. Both sides of the ball made plays as the first-team offense twice moved the ball into field goal range.
Defensively, Kelly Poppinga intercepted a Jason Beck pass and nearly returned the ball for a touchdown. Chris Bolden and Romney Fuga each had a sack that allowed time to elapse on another drive.
The final drive of team drills ended in one play when quarterback Max Hall's pass was tipped and intercepted to end the practice.
The remainder of the Fall Camp practices will be closed to the general public. BYU will begin official Arizona game preparation practices Friday.
