Football continues in spring camp

PROVO, Utah – BYU football completed its third practice of spring camp on Thursday evening, conducting the session outside on the SAB practice fields for the first time this spring. Read below to see what defensive coordinator 'Ilaisa Tuiaki, quarterback Baylor Romney, running back Tyler Allgeier and tight end Isaac Rex had to say during media availability following Thursday's practice.

Defensive Coordinator Coach Ilaisa Tuiaki | video
On coaching changes this season
It’s been good. Obviously, the guy that's learning the most right now is Preston Hadley. He moved from secondary over to the front. But he's been with me, and it's been good to have him. He’s a smart coach and intelligent. He’s picking everything up, but also just giving us a little bit more opportunity to focus on specific position groups.

For all these years and all the places that I've been, I've always had a graduate assistant just coaching the front—the whole front. It’s a lot of work. There are a lot of guys that are doing different things. There are so many moving parts and so many guys learning a bunch of different techniques in different positions. So, having Preston has been huge for me, and I think he's got a bright future coaching the front if he wants to stay in there.

Coach Clune was my coach. So, having a mentor, a good friend, as well as just a guy that's been a coordinator, we've got a lot of coordinator experience in our room. Obviously, always having Kalani with us is huge.  So, the movement of the coaches has been good to shake us up and change things up for us; to just refresh things and move things around.

Getting that full-time position on the defensive side, I had never really realized how much we were missing out. We always felt like we were doing a good job with four coaches and kind of battling. We wanted the offense to have those six coaches so they can be successful but having five coaches on our side has been refreshing. And I'm really happy with the way that's going right now.

Quarterback Baylor Romney | video
On the quarterback competition
I've never really known anything different since I've been here, so it’s just casual for me. It’s good. It makes everyone better, having to compete, having to take every rep seriously and every drill seriously, just makes the whole room elevate and perform at a higher level every single day.

On the chemistry in the offense
The chemistry between the whole offense is just continuing to grow. A lot of guys are returning and a lot of guys have experience. Then again, there are all those younger guys as well, and it's fluid and the connection is there.

On his strengthens as a quarterback
I feel like I'm very smart with the football. I tend to make decisions quickly and my philosophy as a quarterback is to get the ball accurately, on-time, to playmakers and let them do the rest. I feel that that's where my strengths come from.

Running Back Tyler Allgeier | video
On how to top last season
Honestly, I just tried to forget about last year. Last year I had high numbers or whatever, but just try to forget about the year and then just look at old film work and look at what I need to work on for right now. There's always something to work on, especially with spring ball starting up. We are in the third day right now, you know, and I still have stuff to work on. So just perfecting that until the next season is my goal right now.

On where the offense is right now after losing some key players
I think that we lost some of our key receivers, we lost Zach Wilson of course. We lost some key o-linemen, but I believe that our o-linemen, quarterbacks and receivers right now worked their butt off in the offseason to get that standing of the past guys. So I trust my team. I love my team. I'm glad that we have the guys that we have right now. We can just build off that.

On the new running backs who show promise
We got Beau Robinson, he’s new. Mason Fakahua is starting to get a lot of reps in. So, they’re still learning the playbook and all that, but they've made great steps. They're actually looking really good out there. So, I'm glad to have them in the room and just to progress with them day-by-day.

Tight End Isaac Rex | video
On where the offense is so far
I feel like we just have a lot of guys stepping up. We have a couple new guys and we also have some returning players that want to be even better than last year. So, I feel like we're really trying to keep that firepower going and we're just trying to get better every day. So, we're excited to get them going and we're gonna keep this thing rolling throughout the season.

On how to build on last year
I felt really comfortable in the red zone last year. But this year, I'm just trying to be an all-around tight end. I want to get the ball on any sort of down and not only just third and fourth or just in the red zone. I just want to help the team win and just try to be a more all-around competitive titan. So, I was happy with last year but hopefully, I can improve and even perfect my craft.

On leadership in the tight end group
We’re all a year older and we all have a lot of experience. Mason Wake, Carter Wheat, Lane Lunt and Hank Tuipulotu also all played in significant games. So, it was really cool seeing us step up last year, but now we're not like little young freshmen anymore. We all have experience and we've all had game time. So, we're just trying to improve on that and make even more plays than we did last year. The tight end room is really talented. We're really good, and we're strong, and fast and I think we can make a lot of plays next year.