There's something missing from BYU's spring football drills.
It's a simple thing you normally see in football practices, part of the game: Fights.
You know, fights — guys letting go, taking swings, making a manly statement of some kind, demanding respect, making a point by ramming a fist into another guy's helmet, or holding onto a face mask while wildly swinging for the gut, the ribs or ear hole.
After all, football is nothing but an organized fight with rules — guys trying to kick the brains out of other guys.
The lack of fights came up last week when some NFL players who'd played at BYU visited a Cougar practice. They witnessed BYU's veteran, more experienced and much larger offensive line hold defensive linemen on almost every play. In their day, they say, it would've been cause for a rumble, just on principle.
So, what gives? Has Bronco Mendenhall's "Band of Brothers" thing watered down emotions and taken the starch out of defensive players? Are there too many so-called nice guys just off LDS missions playing defense and their perspective on life has overshadowed the testosterone pumping through their bodies? Are they turning the other cheek and getting whiplash? Morphing into milquetoast, mild-mannered physical midgets?
I asked around Friday after a very physical scrimmage. I went directly to redshirt freshman defensive lineman Jan Jorgensen and asked him why he didn't get mad and refuse to take it any more, noting his torn jersey where he'd been held like a fireman latched onto by a five-alarm victim at the end of a ladder.
Jorgensen said maybe he'd be a better football player if he took a few swings, but he's never been that kind of player. "I do my playing between the whistles."
He also gave a reminder that the first practice of spring there were fights on two consecutive plays in the first scrimmage. Mendenhall broke it up and warned everyone if it happened again, they'd all run 'til they dropped.
"Maybe that curbed it right there, I don't know."
Jorgensen said he'd walked off the field a lot of times this spring thinking he'd done poorly, especially defending the run. Then he'd go upstairs and see the film. He'd been clamped down and tackled, and it wasn't all legal. So, Jorgensen felt better; he hadn't completely failed as he thought he had on the field.
The freshman also said fighting didn't figure into games. "If you don't get caught up and fight in practice, keep your head, I think you'll be more prepared and in control in a game where emotions are going to be much higher. It could cost you a penalty and maybe a game."
I ran the fight issue by quarterback coach Brandon Doman, then Mendenhall himself.
Doman admitted his guys were getting away with stuff, but he praised BYU's defenders saying under Mendenhall's scheme, nobody has time to fight. "Mendenhall makes players in his effort-based defense get to the ball. You cannot afford to get tied up in a scuffle or lag behind on the ground — if you aren't in the picture, in the frame, you aren't playing defense."
"Frankly," Doman said, "I credit Mendenhall for keeping his guys under control. Our offensive guys are nasty that way, but our defensive guys have more on their mind than a fight."
Yeah, but what about a fight just for the sake of being a man when you're getting hit with a cheap or illegal shot? It drove some NFL guys, former Cougar players, crazy.
Friday, under the eyes of paid scrimmage officials with whistles, a BYU offensive lineman was called for a personal foul for holding. Mendenhall said that was a cause-and-effect call, which cost the offense.
Said Mendenhall: "I want players to chase the ball and let the officials worry about the calls. I think they're fighting more diligently by getting up and chasing the ball than swinging and playing outside the rules.
"When officials call it appropriately, there's a lesson learned and enforced."
So, an older, more experienced offensive line is kind of playing predator on a young, budding defensive front, and through 12 BYU practices, defenders haven't evoked the rule of the jungle.
That may be a good thing. Or maybe it's not, depending on perspective and ways and means of who is in charge. Maybe O-line guys are getting away with stuff they shouldn't, but it doesn't seem to bother anybody; after all, they have four in their ranks out with shoulder surgeries and another pair sidelined after foot surgeries.
BYU spring drills wind down this coming week with a Blue-White game in seven days at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
It will be minus Gene Fulmer or an appearance by Sugar Ray.
By design.
E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com