The BYU football team made its fall entrance Saturday into an empty Cougar Stadium for its annual media day. Offensive players in blue home jerseys, defense wearing white. Coach LaVell Edwards holding court with the local media. Players spewing forth cliches while waiting for individual and team photos.
Newcomers changing into suit jackets and neckties. Scouts watching - well, at least the Boy Scout kind.Just another opening-day version of Pigskin on Parade, Cougar-style.
"It's something that the guys say they don't like," said Edwards, also mindful that there are very few college athletes without a Will Rogers-like mentality: They've never met an interview or camera that they didn't like.
For the record, Saturday morning's Kodak moment signaled the start of fall camp for the Cougars, who are coming off a 14-1 season, WAC championship and Cotton Bowl victory. Just three weeks and counting until the season-opener in Provo - against Washington, which handed BYU its sole setback last year.
Also for the record, little has been settled over the summer since spring drills.
Kevin Feterik and Paul Shoemaker are still awaiting announcement of which will be the starting quarterback - although JC transfer Riley Jensen's summer departure for Utah State makes it an official two-QB race. Cornerback Omarr Morgan is still saddled with a three-game suspension for Honor Code violations - and his early season absence is going to add to the concerns that already existed at that position. The special teams will feature new, generally untested faces. And former fullback Dustin Johnson - sidelined during spring drills with a leg injury - is eager to prove that he can answer the questions at tight end.
"I might as well make a statement and tell all about the quarterback controversy and tell what I like and don't like about Kevin," said Shoemaker in jest during his umpteenth morning interview and the umpteenth question about the BYU's unresolved quarterback position.
Meanwhile, redshirt sophomore linebacker Rob Morris - expected to fill in the middle for the heralded yet graduated Shay Muirbrook - was making a fashion statement of sorts, sporting a sleeveless Superman logo T-shirt. "I thought I would come out of the closet and let people know who I really am," he said. "I'm letting them know my true identity."
Beyond that, everybody was serving as standard quote machines, offering the typical season-opening fare. Everybody, that is, except for running back Ronney Jenkins, who was dismissed from school earlier this year for Honor Code violations but recently readmitted into school and allowed to possibly practice - but not play - with the Cougars for a redshirt sophomore season.
"I don't think I can talk to anybody," said Jenkins as he waved off a reporter and glanced over his shoulder for any coaches.
Some of the morning's best material came off the cuff as the three-dozen Cougar players who had earned their Eagle rank in the Boy Scouts of America posed with uniformed Scouts, backpacks and other outdoor equipment for a promotional photo underneath the north-end goalposts. Several players were obviously mindful that their body art may be commonplace in college athletics but not typical for the clean-cut image of the Scouting program.
"No airbrushing the tattoos," admonished one player.
"Hey, I got mine at Scout camp," quipped a teammate.
Added another: "I've got an American eagle on my shoulder.
Meanwhile, on the east edge of the stadium field, freshman and other newcomers to the Y. team were having their pictures taken in white shirts, ties and extra-large suit jackets for game-program photos. One or two even had to be shown how to fold down one's shirt collar over a necktie.
The Cougars settled down to business Saturday afternoon in their first full-team practice - freshmen and first-timers had been in drills earlier this week.
Two-a-days begin Monday, with full-pad practices in the morning and lighter workouts - with the players in shorts and shoulder pads - in the late afternoons. Such scheduling - full contact in the morning, noncontact in the evening - is a carryover from last year as the Cougars prepared for the early season Pigskin Classic game, says Edwards.
The coaching staff noticed better intensity and effort in full pads in the morning from previous years when they went all out in the late afternoon, so they flip-flopped the routine they had been using more a decade or more.
BYU has planned its first scrimmage for Saturday and a follow-up scrimmage Thursday, Aug. 28.