Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo

Daily Herald sports writers Darnell Dickson and Brandon Gurney give their opinions on the hot BYU sports topics this week:

1. Two projected BYU starters, wide receiver Keelan Marion and linebacker Harrison Taggart, entered the transfer portal last week. Is this just the college football world we live in or is there something amiss in the football program?

DICKSON: It’s much more an indictment of the entire college football system than anything else. I get teased for being too old school sometimes, which can happen at my age. I’m not against change, but I don’t think the current state of college football is sustainable. There needs to be some kind of governing body that can regulate the transfer portal and NIL in an effective way. Letting the inmates run the asylum is not going to work in the long term and will harm the game. You can’t fault Marion and Taggart for looking to better their own situation. If someone approaches them with more money than BYU has offered, they have to listen, right? Or if there are issues with teammates or coaches, or with playing time, or whatever. Everyone’s story is their own to write.

GURNEY: No football program is perfect, and that certainly includes BYU, but stating that the transfers of both Marion and Taggart signals that something’s amiss within the program, generally, isn’t accurate.

Look, there’s 105 players on a collegiate football roster, and keeping every single one of those satisfied with regards to playing time, NIL money, development, and oh, NIL money (notice I said that twice) isn’t realistic. It’s not a BYU problem, but a current climate of college football problem, and despite the losses of both Taggart and Marion, you could well argue that BYU won the transfer portal war during the 2025 offseason. At least so far.

2. How concerned should BYU football fans be with so many Cougars in the transfer portal right now?

GURNEY: It’s always a concern, particularly with both Taggart and Marion anticipated to play central roles within the team this year. To me, the weight of each respective loss correlates directly to how well Siale Esera proves in replacing Taggart and how Cody Hagan suffices in filling in for Marion.

Both Esera and Hagan have loads of potential, and if either proves healthy throughout the season, then I honestly feel that the losses of Marion and Taggart won’t be a big deal. If either of them reaggravate the injury issues that have plagued them since arriving at BYU, then those transfer portal losses become more pronounced.

I’d also mention that defensive tackle Josh Singh entering the portal recently is probably a bigger deal than most realize.

DICKSON: Roster limits have a lot of college football programs concerned and rightly so. Even now that topic is being debated in court. I feel like Cougar fans should be more concerned about how depleted the roster will be of depth. When you get into the regular season you need good scout team players to competed with your starters, who you need to keep sharp. Every program is going to be dealing with the same issue and I think it will be a challenge for coaching staffs to balance things out.

3. Which BYU football player has the best chance of sticking in the NFL, whether or not they are drafted this weekend?

DICKSON: For some reason I think cornerback Jakob Robinson will impress somebody as a free agent and earn himself a roster spot. His combination of speed, agility and coverage ability, despite being kind of small, will impress somebody enough to keep him in the league. He’s tough enough, but is he durable enough? Plus, he’s an Orem Tiger, just like Puka Nacua, and we all know how he turned out in the NFL.

GURNEY: It feels like a cop-out to say Tyler Batty here, but I’m going to say defensive end Tyler Batty. His work ethic, collegiate success and his lack of ego could all contribute well to the Payson product enjoying a good and lengthy NFL career.

I’ve rarely covered a BYU athlete that is as endlessly optimistic and genuine as Batty, and maybe I’m biased here due to my admiration for him personally, but I think those traits count for something.

4. In light of Jimmer Fredette announcing his retirement, who’s the GOAT of BYU men’s basketball: Danny Ainge or Fredette?

GURNEY: This is a very tough question, and one where I could answer either way and feel good about it and awful about it at the same time. But I’m going Jimmer here, maybe simply due to me being too young to give Danny Ainge his just due. I’ll leave that one to Darnell.

Jimmer surpassed Ainge’s scoring record while at BYU and equaled Ainge’s feats of being named a First-team All-American and being named as the Collegiate Player of the Year. He was a media phenomenon unlike any Cougar player I can remember and subsequently will remain the first thought of many when asked about BYU basketball.

DICKSON: Man, don’t make me choose. Ainge provided a major highlight of my teenage life, sprinting the length of the court for the winning basket against Notre Dame as I watched the game on the TV of my good friend Steve Holthus, who was Catholic (true story). I wrote a ton of stories about Fredette as he went from a freshman coming off the bench to the college basketball player of the year and experienced the whole thing first hand. But since I’m old (school), I’m going with Ainge for a couple of reasons. He was maybe the best athlete to ever don a uniform at BYU. He was a high school All-American in three sports and played professional baseball for a while. There wasn’t a 3-point line back then and so for him to average 20 points a game for a four-year career (and 24.4 his senior season) is pretty impressive. No Cougar team since his 1981 squad has ever advanced beyond the Sweet 16. Finally, I see Ainge at a lot of BYU sporting events, including men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball. He’s a true Cougar, through and through.

5. What are your first impressions of the job new BYU women’s basketball coach Lee Cummard has done since taking over the program?

DICKSON: I think Cummard did an excellent job of retaining the talent already on the roster, especially Big 12 Freshman of the Year Delaney Gibb. When Amber Whiting was let go as head coach we knew her daughter, Amari, was gone. Pretty much everyone else is running it back, and retention is a big deal in college basketball. With his recruiting, Cummard was able to keep the commitments that had already been made and even got Olivia Hamlin, the No. 2 rated player in Utah, to flip from Nebraska. He’s made a pretty nice splash with some international recruits as well. I’ll be interested to see who he adds to his coaching staff (Jimmer is retired and he’s a former teammate. He would make a good assistant coach, right?). I don’t know how quickly Cummard can get the Cougars more competitive in the Big 12 but I do know he’s really, really good at building relationships and I think he’s made a good start.

GURNEY: Cummard has recruited very well, but more importantly worked to retain key players within the program, perhaps most notably Kailey Woolston. The Lone Peak product withdrew her name from the transfer portal soon after Cummard was hired. Woolston is familiar with Cummard, and her action speaks better to his abilities than anything I could assess.

Cummard is a serious coach who was willing to start from the bottom up to achieve his current status. I’d be genuinely surprised if he didn’t work to boost BYU’s status playing within a very competitive Big12 Conference.