In a turnabout no one saw coming, the quarterback BYU had in spring practice, Jake Retzlaff, is taking snaps at Tulane, and the projected signal caller at Stanford, Bear Bachmeier, is getting reps in Provo.
The upheaval, although caused by different circumstances at all three programs, triggered the same disruption. With the new season just weeks away, each team is bracing to break in someone new.
Change can come quickly in college football, and perhaps no one knows that better than Mitch Mathews. The receiver started his senior year teamed up with veteran quarterback Taysom Hill, but before the first game was over, Hill was out with an injury, and a freshman two months removed from his church mission was in.
Mathews, the 6-foot-6 receiver from Beaverton, Oregon, caught Hill’s last touchdown pass at BYU in the second quarter and he pulled in Tanner Mangum’s first Cougar touchdown toss on the final play of the game — a crowded 42-yard grab to beat Nebraska 33-28.
“When I saw Tanner trotting onto the field, I remember saying ‘Oh, no!,’” Mathews told the Y’s Guys livestream show. “Tanner was at my wedding. He knows I love him, but we just didn’t know how that would go.
“Here you have Taysom, who’s gonna have an All-American type year, so when he was not on the field, you knew something must be really wrong. When Tanner came on, it was like ‘did all this work just go in vain?’”
Once the euphoria of the victory subsided, reality set in. The injury to Hill was season ending. In a flash and without a choice, BYU had to adjust from a veteran leader to a kid who had just played his first competitive game of football in three years.
“It is a transition. It is tough. Just having all that time, all that chemistry, I wondered, ‘Was that whole offseason just a waste of time now? Who are we? What is the offense now?’” Mathews said. “We were so sure of ourselves going into that season with the offense that we had.”
For Mathews, the loss of Hill meant he had to find a way to do more.
“I felt like I had to find a new gear and go make plays that maybe I didn’t think were possible because we can’t put the pressure on this new guy that is warming up his hands as he’s running onto the field because he had no idea he was playing today,” Mathews said. “We ended up making a lot of plays for him and he stepped up in a massive way.”
The next week, Mangum rallied BYU for a second come-from-behind victory against No. 20 Boise State. But as the schedule strengthened, the adjustments became harder to make.
“Taysom and I had our own hand signals for each other, our own looks that were based on what the defense was doing. We just knew when to break off on a route,” he said.
“When you have a new quarterback, you just go back to vanilla. Some of our more complex plays were out of the playbook. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just adjusting back to what this new QB can handle and how we can set him up for success.”
Understanding BYU’s new vulnerabilities, opposing defenses put their focus on Mathews.
“It was disheartening,” he said. “My senior year we go play Utah, UCLA, Michigan, (and Missouri) — you play all these big teams, and you just know when you show up that it’s Cover 2 on my side all game long.”
To his credit, even with the added attention, Mathews finished the season with 54 receptions for 737 yards and 11 touchdowns as the Cougars went 9-4. Today, a decade later, the former star sees similarities between his final year and the last season ahead for preseason All-Big 12 receiver Chase Roberts.
When Retzlaff left the program this summer, Roberts lost a veteran quarterback who was primed to get him the ball. Retzlaff’s successor will either be a junior, a sophomore or a freshman who has never played a down at BYU.
“Chase has a tough job. Chemistry is sort of gone and he’s going to have all eyes on him,” said Mathews, who wants to see the Cougars move Roberts around, put him in motion, put him in the slot and make shifts for him so he can maintain his production. “He has to produce.”
Breaking in a new quarterback will also test Roberts’ fortitude.
“He will need to be so forgiving and flexible with this new quarterback because he’s not going to be his first choice. Retzlaff was his first choice. He’s going to have to be supportive, but,” Mathews smiled, “he can also tell the quarterback when he is open – like I did with Tanner.”
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.