PROVO — Backup quarterback and utility player extraordinaire Taysom Hill recently signed a two-year contract extension with the New Orleans Saints reportedly worth $21 million, while linebacker Kyle Van Noy inked a five-year, $51 million deal with the Miami Dolphins.
Defensive end Ziggy Ansah signed a $9 million one-year deal with the Seattle Seahawks last year and linebackers Fred Warner and Sione Takitaki, defensive backs Daniel Sorensen and Michael Davis and running back Jamaal Williams are also being paid well to play professional football.
The New York Jets employ three former BYU standouts — linemen Bronson and Corbin Kaufusi and linebacker Harvey Langi.
“Guys are making big-time money, and that’s been awesome to see,” said former BYU linebacker David Nixon, Hill’s brother-in-law.
But in the most recent NFL draft, no Cougars were drafted and only two — receiver Aleva Hifo and defensive back Dayan Ghanwoloku — have signed free-agent contracts, while running back Ty’Son Williams agreed to sign with Baltimore, but it has yet to become official. That’s resurrected an old question that has dogged the program for the last 10-20 years.
“I think it is complicated and multi-faceted. I don’t think you can point to just one thing and say this is the only reason why. Most of the low-hanging fruit resides around the returned missionary deal. But there’s a lot more to it.” — Former BYU football player Ben Criddle, a local sports talk radio host.
Why are so few BYU players getting drafted, or getting NFL opportunities? Last month marked the second time since 2015 and fourth time since 2011 that BYU failed to have a player taken in the seven-round NFL draft.
Since 2010, BYU has had only eight players drafted — Takitaki (2019), Warner (2018), Jamaal Williams (2017), Bronson Kaufusi (2016), Van Noy (2014), Ansah (2013), Dennis Pitta (2010) and Harvey Unga, who was selected in the July 2010 supplemental draft after he withdrew from school due to a self-confessed honor code violation.
During that same time frame — 10 drafts — rival Utah has had 39 players selected, including seven in 2020, five in 2019 and eight in 2017. That Utah roared past BYU in draft numbers the past decade is understandable, considering the Utes got the golden ticket, membership in the Pac-12, in 2011.
What really rankles BYU fans and former players is that once-lowly Utah State has had 13 players selected since 2010 (five more than BYU), including quarterback Jordan Love in the first round last month, and arguably boasts the best local product in the league right now, Seattle Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner. He went in the second round of the 2012 draft, when three Aggies were taken, but no Cougars.
Currently, Utah has 30 players in the NFL right now (including 12 rookies), while USU has 15 (and five rookies).
Recently, the Deseret News explored one possible reason for BYU’s draft futility: Many BYU players serve two-year missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and are typically two years older than their counterparts.
“I think age, BYU guys going on missions, has a lot to do with it,” said former BYU linebacker Jordan Pendleton, who believes from years of training NFL draft hopefuls that the league shies away from RMs, especially those with a history of injuries.
But there are several other reasons, almost everyone associated with the program agrees.
“I think it is complicated and multi-faceted,” said former player Ben Criddle, now a local sports radio talk show host. “I don’t think you can point to just one thing and say this is the only reason why. Most of the low-hanging fruit resides around the returned missionary deal. But there’s a lot more to it.”
A few scouts, more than a half-dozen former BYU players, including Pendleton, Criddle, Nixon, Dylan Collie, Austin Lee and Hifo — almost all from different eras the past 15 years — and several current players familiar with fifth-year coach Kalani Sitake’s recruiting pitch and player-development and promotion methods recently spoke to the Deseret News about the trend.
Here are some other reasons they suggested:
Mediocre seasons
“There’s no substitute for winning,” Pendleton said. “Obviously the program has dipped in recent years. Winning cures a lot of things, and if you are a good player on a winning team, or maybe a great player on a defense that is top 15 in the country, or an offense that is scoring 45 points a game, or you’re a receiver on a team that is putting up 400, 500 yards a game, that has a lot more pull than if you are on a team that is last in offense in the entire NCAA, or close to it.”
Indeed, BYU has posted just one 10-win season since 2010, a 10-3 mark in 2011. The program seemingly bottomed out in 2017, when it had an abysmal offense and went 4-9, failing to make a bowl game for the first time since 2004.
“Consistency has been lacking,” Nixon said. “That’s the problem right now. We are on a roller coaster. You don’t know which team is going to show up on any given Saturday.”
Pendleton points to the case of just-graduated receiver Micah Simon, who didn’t even get a free-agent opportunity despite having a lot of speed and fluidity, and a fairly productive senior season.
“He didn’t go on a mission, so he’s young,” Pendleton said. “Why is somebody like that not even getting a shot? The only thing I can think of is player development, and the fact that he played on a very poor offense for three years in a row and the production wasn’t there.”
Collie, who watched his older brother, Austin, get drafted in 2009 and have an outstanding NFL career before a series of concussions ended it, says fans get too caught up in draft numbers and don’t pay enough attention to the impacts that former BYU players are having in the league. It is quality over quantity that’s important, he says.
“If we want to talk about what really matters, talk about who is getting paid in their second contract and who is being talked about for making an actual impact,” said the transfer from Hawaii who got his master’s in public administration from BYU. “It is really hard to shy away from saying BYU is ahead in that category.”
Inordinate amount of injuries
Many in our panel believe Ty’Son Williams would have been drafted if he hadn’t sustained a season-ending ACL injury against Washington in the fourth game. Hifo (shoulder) and Ghanwoloku (hamstring) were also dogged by injuries and their size.
“They are both dynamic playmakers,” Collie said of his 2018 teammates. “They both have the right skill sets. They just don’t have the height. The only reason Aleva wasn’t drafted is because of his (surgically repaired) shoulders and his height. What can BYU do about that? Nothing.”
Injuries probably prevented Corbin Kaufusi, Hill, Jordan Leslie and Pendleton from getting drafted as well, the former players surmised.
“Injuries are huge factors for NFL scouts,” Pendleton said. “I bring that up because we’ve been one of the most injured teams in the country. You look at the roster shuffles we have had the last couple of years, it is probably more than any other team in the country.”
Nixon, who is in commercial real estate and works part-time for BYUtv as an analyst on several of the school-owned television station’s football-related shows, said the injuries have been a function of playing more difficult opponents during independence. So, in a way, independence might be viewed as one of the reasons for BYU’s draft drop-off.
“Yeah, injuries have hurt,” said Nixon, who was an undrafted free agent in 2009 and played sparingly for six NFL teams during a four-year career. “Last year, we had the most freshmen in the country playing, due to injuries. When we were in the Mountain West, we weren’t getting banged up as much because a lot of times we were blowing people out and the starters didn’t play in the fourth quarter.”
Criddle said next year the Cougars will have a cornerback, Chris Wilcox, with the talent, speed, smarts and size to get drafted. But the 6-foot-2 Wilcox has battled knee and ankle injuries throughout his career.
“It will be interesting to see how he develops, and how the NFL teams look at his (injury) history,” Criddle said.
Talent and player development issues
Speaking of Wilcox’s progression, player development is another factor that some former players wonder about. It was supposed to be one of Sitake’s strengths when he succeeded Bronco Mendenhall after the 2015 season, but only three Sitake-coached players — Takitaki, Warner and Jamaal Williams (one season) — have been drafted.
Getting guys ready for the NFL “is something that is really important to us,” Sitake said in March. “We are working really hard to get their numbers out there, and get them seen. … We are just happy to have an athletic director that will do what it takes to promote our players to the NFL, promote our brand.”
Cody Hoffman, who would become BYU’s all-time leading receiver before he graduated in 2013, was seemingly the type of athlete bound for the NFL when he emerged midway through Mendenhall’s tenure. Speedy, 6-foot-4 and sure-handed, he caught 260 passes for 3,612 yards and 33 touchdowns in a brilliant career. Yet he wasn’t drafted and never made it in the NFL.
Was he not properly developed, Criddle wonders. Did BYU’s strength and conditioning staff fail to get him strong enough? Were BYU’s offensive schemes, or the defensive backs who faced Hoffman in practice, not adequate to make him better?
“Maybe he wasn’t as prepared as much as he could have been because he mostly faced zone coverage in practice,” Criddle said. “That’s why Kalani wants to play more man. He’s trying to create an environment where his players can be focused on by scouts and see that, yeah, this guy can play in space. The NFL is all about playing in space.”
Collie, who played for Hawaii for three years before returning to Provo for his final season of eligibility, said the coaching he got at both schools, coupled with some private instruction he sought out on his own, was enough.
“No, we haven’t hit the ceiling,” Collie said. “No matter what happens — BYU could have losing seasons for five straight seasons — and people are still going to follow BYU. It is very difficult for people to pull away from BYU. You are always going to have five or six guys every couple of years who have dreamed of playing at BYU who are going to choose BYU over any other school. I think you are seeing that with the guys who are coming in now.”
Says Pendleton, whose sister is married to Austin Collie: “As of recently, (BYU’s draft numbers) have definitely declined. I think a lot of it has to do with player development. There is a lot that goes into the draft. It is not only about ability, it is about Xs and Os. It is about how cerebral you are as a player, how much you’ve been taught and know the game.”
Subpar recruiting
Anybody who has followed BYU’s standing in the national recruiting rankings knows the numbers aren’t pretty. According to 247sports.com, BYU’s classes ranked 66th in 2017, 78th in 2018, 81st in 2019 and 77th in 2020.
“Recruiting is huge — you have to have some talent at the start to begin with,” Criddle says. “But you’ve also got to be able to get those guys who can survive the academic rigors of BYU, in addition to the honor code, and that can be really difficult.”
The former walk-on points to players such as Utah’s Francis Bernard and Star Lotulelei and former Utah State safety Dallin Leavitt who were BYU recruits but couldn’t stay in Provo for one reason or another and are or will likely be playing in the NFL.
Part of solid recruiting, Sitake has said, is identifying not only which players can shine on the football field, but which can handle everything else that BYU demands.
“If you go to BYU strictly for football — unfortunately for fans and boosters out there that care about football, that includes me — you are probably going to the wrong university,” Criddle said. “Now, if you want to have the most complete university experience around, BYU might be your best choice. I’ve been told that that is the pitch BYU makes.”
Before he was promoted to executive coordinator of recruiting and player personnel last month, Jasen Ah You served as the team’s NFL/pro liaison. He will keep that role. He spoke recently of the need to scour the country for potential pros, while also getting the right fits.
“We need to recruit the type of athletes they are looking for in the pros,” Ah You said. “Make no mistake, we are going for those types of athletes. … We are going to swing big. If we are going to play a Power Five schedule, which we are, we are going to need Power Five kids, Power Five student-athletes.”
But like Nixon says, those types of players are few and far between. He knows because he’s related to one, even if Hill went undrafted.
BYU’s NFL draft and free-agent history since 2010
2020 draft picks: None
2020 free-agent opportunities: Dayan Ghanwoloku, Aleva Hifo, Ty’Son Williams (agreed to sign, not official)
2019 draft picks: Sione Takitaki, Cleveland Browns, third round
2019 free-agent opportunities: Corbin Kaufusi, Tanner Mangum, Dylan Collie
2018 draft picks: Fred Warner, San Francisco 49ers, third round
2018 free-agent opportunities: Jonah Trinnaman, Micah Hannemann, Tomasi Laulile, Tejan Koroma, Tanner Balderree, Handsome Tanielu, Algernon Brown
2017 draft picks: Jamaal Williams, Green Bay Packers, fourth round
2017 free-agent opportunities: Taysom Hill, Harvey Langi, Sae Tautu, Algernon Brown, Kai Nacua, Michael Davis, Andrew Eide, Nick Kurtz, Colby Pearson, Brad Wilcox
2016 draft picks: Bronson Kaufusi, Baltimore Ravens, third round
2016 free-agent opportunities: Mitch Mathews, Ryker Mathews, Manoa Pikula, Graham Rowley, Terenn Houk
2015 draft picks: None
2015 free-agent opportunities: Harvey Jackson, Paul Lasike, Solomone Kafu, Alani Fua, Robertson Daniel, Skye PoVey, Jordan Leslie, Ross Apo, Devin Mahina, De’Ondre Wesley
2014 draft picks: Kyle Van Noy, Detroit Lions, second round
2014 free-agent opportunities: Cody Hoffman, Daniel Sorensen, Eathyn Manumaleuna, Spencer Hadley, Kaneakua Friel
2013 draft picks: Ezekiel Ansah, Detroit Lions, first round
2013 free-agent opportunities: Braden Brown, Braden Hansen, Brandon Ogletree, Uona Kaveinga, Romney Fuga, Preston Hadley
2012 draft picks: None
2012 free-agent opportunities: Matt Reynolds, Terence Brown, Hebron Fangupo, McKay Jacobson
2011 draft picks: None
2011 free-agent opportunities: Vic So’oto, Andrew Rich, Brian Logan, Jason Speredon
2010 draft picks: Dennis Pitta, Baltimore Ravens, fourth round; Harvey Unga, Chicago Bears, seventh round (supplemental)
2010 free-agent opportunities: Manase Tonga, Andrew George