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PROVO — While all eyes remain squarely fixated on the quarterback room during BYU's offseason following its breakout 11-1 season that finished with a top-15 national ranking in every major poll, there's another room that may have its own breakout star.
And that room isn't afraid to take on as much pressure as it needs from the signal callers.
To quote several BYU assistant coaches: bring on all the smoke.
Especially if you're a Cougar running back.
"I hope we have all the pressure," said BYU running backs coach Harvey Unga, the former Cougars' all-time leading rusher. "I tell them that all the time; I want the pressure on us.
"The more pressure we can take on us, I feel like we can help out everyone else, especially with the new quarterback. Hopefully these guys take it on themselves."
Of course, it's easy for the Cougar running backs to accept that pressure when they have their own potential star in the making — redshirt sophomore Tyler Allgeier. It may or may not be like former quarterback Zach Wilson's explosive rise last year to No. 2 overall pick in the NFL draft by the New York Jets, but a lot of national observers are predicting a big season for Allgeier.
BYU ranks dead last in ESPN's returning production from the 2020 season — 127th out of 127 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. That's to be expected after Wilson and a handful of other impactful players bolted for the NFL after the Cougars' best season by record since 1996.
But most of the 47% of returning offensive production is related to Allgeier.
The 5-foot-11, 220-pound converted linebacker from Fontana, California, ran for 1,130 yards and 13 touchdowns as a sophomore in 2020, his first full season at running back since becoming Kaiser High School's all-time leading rusher with 2,470 yards and 29 touchdowns as a senior.
Allgeier entered the 2020 season as a relative unknown, after joining BYU as a walk-on in 2018 for a redshirt season and moving to linebacker a year later for more playing time before making the switch back to offense.
From the first game of last season, Allgeier proved to be everything the Cougars needed in an primary ball carrier. He came out of nowhere for a lot of onlookers, but not to his teammates and fellow backs.
"For the people on the outside looking in, Tyler came out of nowhere. But for those of us who see what's happening, he didn't," said tailback Lopini Katoa, who was the only other running back to top 100 rushing yards on the season with 444. "I always knew Tyler was a great running back and that he was going to be somebody who got a lot of carries. When he came up and the coaches gave him the opportunity, I wasn't shocked at all when he started doing the things that he did."
National college football expert Phil Steele rates Allgeier as the ninth-best draft-eligible running back in the country, the highest-rated running back from the state of Utah by the magazine and one of eight top-10 prospects at any position from in-state colleges.
Pro Football Focus ranks him as the No. 9 returning running back in the country, citing him as a prime candidate for (another) breakout season for his vision and gains of 10 yards or more on 21.5% of his carries.
And yet, if you ask Allgeier, he's just another plug-and-play back in a stable of strong running backs, a group that includes former Kearns standout Sione Finau, Lone Peak product Jackson McChesney, a fully healthy junior college transfer Hinckley Ropati, and Las Vegas speedster Miles Davis, among others.
"We're going to come in and prove the haters wrong," Allgeier said. "We have the pieces of the puzzle; we're just going to fit it all together. This offseason, we're all working hard just to do our part. So I think that we're going to have a really good season, but obviously, we're going to take it game by game.
"We're working to do our part to perfect our craft, to do our one-eleventh on the field."
Allgeier's challenge — after becoming a rare 1,000-yard rusher in the Cougars' independence era — is to do it again. Plenty of running backs hit a "sophomore slump," but Unga feels like Allgeier is uniquely equipped to avoid the letdown.
Whatever pressure he feels and welcomes on his group, Allgeier doesn't. At least, not in a bad way. The fun-loving tailback from the same hometown as BYU's current all-time leading rusher, Jamaal Williams, doesn't feel pressure.
Maybe that's why his position coach embraces it.
"These guys just don't feel stressed," Unga said. "If one goes down, they know the next guy will come in and balance it back out.
"I don't think Tyler feels that kind of pressure."
The question of starting quarterback will dominate the summer and into fall camp in Provo. But that's mostly because Allgeier, Katoa and the rest of the running backs have more answers than questions.
With a supporting cast that includes the aforementioned rushers, as well as returning wide receiver Gunner Romney, newcomers Puka and Samson Nacua, and freshman All-American tight end Isaac Rex, the starting quarterback may have less pressure on his shoulders — be they those of returning veterans Jaren Hall and Baylor Romney, or freshman riser Jacob Conover.
From the running back room, those guys have been preparing to carry the load.
"The transformation from the offseason, it's unreal," Unga said. "They look totally different. Lopini Katoa looks like a totally new guy, a lot bigger, faster, stronger, and I think it's come across the whole entire room where they're all just pushing themselves along and nobody seems to be complacent."
