PROVO — Bingham High Parade All-America kicker Justin Sorensen will have the most immediate impact on BYU's football program, according to head coach Bronco Mendenhall, speaking of the Cougars' 2008 recruiting class announced on Wednesday.
"At one point, due to injury or inconsistency, we had the fewest field-goal attempts in the country last year," he said. Also, on special teams, the ability to kick the ball into the end zone and inhibit a return is huge, and Mendenhall believes Sorensen, who set a Utah high school mark with a 62-yard field goal this past year, has that kind of leg power.
Overall, Mendenhall said BYU signed the right kind of bodies and added key "character" components needed by the program to keep recent success going forward.
Mendenhall said 18 of the 2008 recruiting class indicated they would be serving a mission right out of high school or in the coming year after enrolling. Those who will leave immediately out of high school for church service are LB Kevan Bills, TE Austin Holt, OL Michael Yeck, WR Jake Murphy and DE Spencer Hadley.
Of the 21 recruits signed on Wednesday, four are on an academic risk list, waiting to finish junior college degrees, post test scores or grades for admission. These include WR O'Neil Chambers, WR Atem Bol, DL Bernard Afutiti, and RB Seta Pohahau.
Mendenhall said BYU's academic standards are the toughest he is aware of.
"I believe all four can qualify," said Mendenhall, who called the Bol story an inspiration and he is pulling for him to make it. Born in the Sudan, his mother divorced and he watched his siblings while she took a two-hour boat ride to work every day. The family migrated to Texas where Bol is the only member of his family who is LDS. Mendenhall said Bol's core class work is solid but his language challenges have made the testing part of college entrance a tough ordeal.
Mendenhall said BYU's staff narrowed the working list of recruits in 2008 to 40 prospects, three per coach.
Of the 40 players the Cougars sifted through in recruiting, they missed on four, according to Mendenhall. He said in-state, BYU missed on two, Ute-bound running back Sausan Shakerin and Timpanogos lineman David Kruger.
The Cougars did not recruit a quarterback in 2008 because after James Lark and Jason Munns left for missions, BYU has starter Max Hall and his backup Brenden Gaskins back for two more years. The Cougars will shift returning missionary Stephen Covey from safety back to quarterback, a position he played at Timpview High School.
Mendenhall said BYU tried to go after an increasing number of prospects whose body builds would fit two types of players: those who can play tight end/defensive end/outside linebacker; and those who fit the running back/safety/linebacker mold.
"That's a great fit for our program," said Mendenhall, who believes those players can be fit into key or critical need areas and play a significant role in special teams play. "It also helps to have a guy who can kick it out of the stadium," he said, referencing Bingham's Sorensen.
Mendenhall decried the system of ranking how good recruits are by "stars" a tool deployed by popular Internet recruiting sites Scout.com and Rivals.com. The stars, said Mendenhall, mean nothing and he teased those who rush to their computers to see how many stars an athlete has earned in a ranking.
Of BYU's 22 starters on the 11-2 MWC championship team, 14 did not earn any star rating in high school and of the remaining eight, the average star rating was 2.5 stars. "So, according to that, we shouldn't have recruited 14 of our players on the 2007 team that went undefeated in conference play."
Head of the class: TE Austin Holt
Immediate impact: K Justin Sorensen
Near miss: Uona Kaveinga
E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com