BYU football: Cougar TE is more than stats

But on the football field, he's a big target for Max Hall. He's got moves, size and great hands. In the space of a year, the redshirt freshman from Kamehameha High in Hawaii, has been handed a lot of responsibility.

Why?

It goes back to a recruiting evaluation change by BYU the past two years.

Friel, who is 6-foot-5, 240 pounds, is currently the third tight end in BYU's offense, slipping into a slot vacated by Vic So'oto when he became a turncoat and went to the defensive side as an outside linebacker.

When the Cougars go to some three tight end sets, Friel is out there and he's looking just like the rest of BYU's storied tight ends. He gets open and he lays down blocks. He scoops up passes all over the place and gets first downs. He is also working at fullback, to ease the loss of Manase Tonga, who will not play this year due to academic challenges.

So, Friel gets all this duty, plus some special teams work and he barely played high school football.

Really?

He's got the least amount of exposure in BYU's football media guide. It amounts to a picture and four lines of print. His background is so underwhelming, publicists at the school could barely write enough about his high school career to sprinkle some ink on the page. There is not even one statistical reference in his bio that proves he played at all at Kamehameha.

Folks familiar with his high school background say that's pretty accurate — he was not used that much for the 8-3 Warriors. Yet, BYU has placed him on line to become the next Dennis Pitta or Chad Lewis.

Right now if something happened to Pitta or Andrew George, Friel would slip right into a regular rotation at tight end.

Bronco Mendenhall says Friel is a talent the program gleaned when it made changes in the way it evaluates players. The staff isn't going to award scholarships on the basis of looking at athletic ability on film alone.

"It was in (summer) camp," said Mendenhall.

Then he explained the Friel recruiting situation and how it fits into the overall deal.

"We've made very few mistakes as a coaching staff in evaluating talent when a young man comes to camp.

All that I've considered mistakes on our part in evaluation were only off of film and very early. There are three or four of them, that, if I were to do it over again, I would have waited (to offer) until they came to camp."

Mendenhall said early on as BYU's coach his staff was anxious to find a certain brand of player. But that has turned into the luxury of being more picky once they have the brand, to require more before pulling the switch on a scholarship.

Recent comments

Add your comment