BYU special teams coordinator/defensive ends coach Kelly Poppinga might have the clearest perspective on how different life is for Cougar football recruiting in 2023 than it was when he coached in various roles in Provo from 2009-15.

“Being out on the road in December and January, for me it was a way different reception than what I was getting you seven years ago when I was here when we were kind of in the middle of being independent,” Poppinga said during Wednesday’s signing day press conference. “The top guys in the country, they want to play Power 5 football. That’s the bottom line. No matter how we tried to spin the independence thing, you were still independent. Now we’re able to be in a big-time conference.”

He talked about the reaction he got when athlete saw BYU’s first Big 12 schedule, which was released on Tuesday.

“They saw week in and week out the teams that we’re going to be playing,” Poppinga said. “Guys see that and they’re fired up. To be able to send that schedule out yesterday to all the recruits and those dudes were fired up to potentially be a part of something like that. So I think it’s a complete game changer in my opinion. It’s something that obviously we’ll have going forward.”

Cougar head coach Kalani Sitake said that he has also seen a “big difference” as BYU transitions to the Big 12, explaining that he adds up all the little impacts to see significant change.

“Let’s take for example our preferred walk-ons,” Sitake said. “I’m not allowed to mention specifically by name, but it’s a talented group — probably one of the more talented groups we’ve ever had. We’re able to recruit these young men and then see them turn down scholarships to other schools to come here with the promise of competing and earning a scholarship. You look at the talent level in that group altogether and the amount of scholarships that they turned down to be here on our roster, that’s going to create a lot of energy but it’s also going to create a lot of competition, which makes our team better overall. So it’s actually strengthening all what people would consider the weaker links and making them stronger. You’re only as strong as your weakest link and our weakest link is getting really, really strong right now.”

He also said that the competition level was something that got the attention of BYU’s biggest signing day announcement: the addition of running back LJ Martin, a former Stanford commit from El Paso.

“Being able to sign someone like LJ today, the fact that we were a Power 5 team made him want to listen a little bit more,” Sitake said. “He listened to see what we’re about, then we had him and his family join us on an official visit. He saw himself being here and wearing our colors and being in the environment and feeling appreciation that all these recruits had on the official visits with the fans that are here. There’s all this stuff that’s going on and when you put it all together, it’s a huge impact on our program.”

BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick explained that Martin’s story was different than some. The running back actually signed in December but had personal reasons to not announce it at that time.

“He wanted to wait,” Roderick said. “He’s a really, really awesome kid who felt indebted to the community and his school. A kid signing with a Power 5 program is a big deal there and he wanted it to be a special event today where he could thank and include everybody in the community and in the school. So we’ve been hanging on to that for a while.”

Roderick said the fit turned out to be perfect after Martin started re-evaluating his destination when Stanford made a coaching change.

“He showed some interest and it probably didn’t hurt that we ran the ball pretty well in that last game against (the Cardinal),” Roderick said. “He was sort of aware of what we’ve done on offense in the last couple years with our running backs and our run game, and then he’s just a great fit. He’s a high character, high academic standards guy. He’s got great parents and we recruited them as just as hard as we did him. We’re super excited about him.”

While Martin and the two defensive linemen who signed on Wednesday (Snow College’s David Latu and Timpview’s Motekiai Mo’unga) look like they could be future contributors for BYU, the reality is that the Cougars are preparing for the rigors of a Big 12 schedule. That means everyone needs to keep pushing to be better.

But when Sitake was asked if his team was ready, he said “you have to be.”

” We didn’t just start getting ready a month ago,” Sitake said. “We’ve been working on this for a while and we know where some of the deficiencies are. I feel like we’ve made a huge improvement in a lot of different places, specifically at the offensive line and defensive line spots. There’s going to be strong competition here.”

Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo

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