Gone are the services of long-time stalwart Tyler Batty, who anchored the end position for at least the past two seasons, providing a high degree of versatility and leadership that will be tough to replace. Batty has moved on to the NFL, where he signed on with the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent, leaving a cadre of young players who will work to replace everything Batty brought to the position.

Doing as much won’t be easy.

“Tyler was a great player, but I think the thing we’re going to miss most is leadership,” said BYU assistant Coach Kelly Poppinga. “He held people accountable to our high standard, brought great energy and great work habits every single day. I don’t know if I’ll ever coach a guy like Tyler Batty, so to replace a guy like that is probably going to take two or three or even four guys.”

Fortunately, for Poppinga, he believes his position group is flush with the type of talent that can approach, and perhaps even surpass, what Batty provided for the Cougar defense.

Poppinga’s exciting group includes Texas transfer and former 4-star recruit Tausili Akana (6-foot-3, 235 pounds So.) and Hunter Clegg (6-4, 245 Fr.) who opted to transfer to BYU from Utah upon completion of his two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both players participated fully with the team this past spring practice session, with Poppinga taking ready note of their respective progress.

“Akana is super explosive and super athletic, but he needs to get bigger and stronger. That’s the biggest thing he needs to work on,” Poppinga noted. “For Hunter, he just needs to get his body back after serving a mission, but I see a lot of Tyler (Batty) in Hunter, although I think Hunter may be even more explosive than Tyler. He’s not as bit and as strong as Tyler, right now, but they have very similar skill sets. I’m very excited about both of those guys. They’re both very hard workers and they’ve shown the guys that they’ll do whatever it takes to get better.”

Other players vying for spots on the edge are Orion Maile-Kaufusi (6-3, 240 Fr.), who made great strides in the spring, according to Poppinga, Viliami Po’uha (6-3, 265 So.), Sani Tuala (6-5, 290 So.) and Nusi Taumoepeau (6-3, 235), who signed as a 4-star recruit with Stanford before transferring to BYU. Add to that group two more freshmen in Vincent Tuatua (6-3, 250) and Kinilau Fonohema (6-5, 240), and Poppinga has a lot to sort out this coming fall practice session, which is a prospect he’s excited for.

“It’s a deep group and a very talented group that I’m really excited about,” Poppinga said. “The competition is going to be fierce, which you always love to have as a coach. My job is to get the most out of each of them every single day and I’m really excited to see how it all pans out.”

But it’s not all about talented inexperience for Poppinga’s group. Chief among the returning talent are senior Logan Lutui (6-2, 255), junior Bodie Schoonover (6-3, 265) and sophomore Ephraim Asiata (6-3, 210), all of whom saw playing time last season.

“We’re really relying a lot on Logan right now to lead the group and show them the way, and he’s embraced that,” Poppinga said. “So we have some good experience returning, but yeah, there’s a lot of new guys we’re going to have to lean on, probably, but that’s exciting because of just how much potential we feel we have with this group. We feel this group has a tremendous amount of upside and we saw a lot of that potential unfold this spring.”

Spring can’t provide an adequate substitute for real-time game experience, however, leaving Poppinga cautiously optimistic about what his position group will ultimately provide this coming season.

“I’m anxious to see how it all unfolds, but I can tell you that the competition level has been very good this past spring extending into the offseason,” Poppinga concluded. “It’s a group that has the desire to improve and to work very hard to get to where they need to be, and that’s a great foundation to have.”