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 Provo • When The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lowered the minimum age in which young men could serve missions to 18 in October of 2012, BYU football coaches immediately began analyzing what the change would mean to them and the program.

Coach Bronco Mendenhall said recently that 80 percent of the players on the team are returned missionaries.

Initially, Mendenhall believed that it would be best if the players left immediately after graduating from high school, and before enrolling at BYU.

But he's had a change of heart. The coach said now he believes it is best for the program and the young man's college career if he plays a season and attends school for fall semester, then leaves in January.

He's found that players who leave in the summer and return two years later aren't ready physically to compete with just a couple months of preparation time, and often have to use a redshirt year their first year back.

"So really, what we would like to do is time the missions out really with as many players leaving in January as possible, because what that does is it allows us to play them [their first year out of high school] and then they get back in January [from their missions]," he said.

Partly because players who are 25 or younger are more appealing to National Football League teams, Mendenhall said the program is moving away from redshirting players as much as possible.

He added that the priority is still getting players out on missions, and that BYU will "facilitate anything a young man wants" in terms of the timing of those missions.

Quarterbacks coach Jason Beck said Tuesday that the exception is quarterbacks — BYU wants QBs who have mission plans to leave as soon as they can. Also, coaches still want the option of redshirting QBs to avoid a same-class logjam at the position.

No changes planned

Although he will have to find a replacement for 14-year strength and conditioning coach Jay Omer, who is retiring, Mendenhall said Monday that he doesn't plan to make any other changes to his coaching staff.

Mendenhall said Omer's decision to call it a career is his own, and that the Orem native will be missed. 

"I think he is looking forward to seeing his grandkids, and he will be hard to replace."

Briefly

BYU punter Scott Arellano was named FBS Independent Special Teams Player of the Week for the fifth time. Zac Stout, a senior inside linebacker, was named FBS Independent Defensive Player of the Week. —

BYU at California

O Saturday, 2:30 p.m. MST

TV • Pac-12 Network