Spring Football marks the beginning of the yout5h movement every year. Football is a brutish sport that takes a physical toll on the athletes such that those who begin their careers at any school, often never make it to a senior year there or anywhere else for a variety of attrition reasons, some academic, some health related. Over the four decades I have covered college football, the one thing that is consistent from Spring Ball to Fall Camp is change. To any extent that change is reflected in positive ways after analyzing the Spring and Fall Rosters is an indication of how successful the team might do against a fall schedule. Of course the task may be a bit daunting in this post COVID19 era where panic over what for 97.5% of the population amounts to a slight >mild case of the flu and for which well over 99.5% of the population exposed actually recover. But let's skip all that. The point is the football team as it looks in Spring will inevitably change some between now and August.

In the FIRST Law of Thermodynamics dU = dQ - dW, meaning that the Change within a System (i.e. a football playing human) is = Energy (potential or kinetic in various forms) is less the amount of Work Expended. Each player is a "system" and as such in order to gain more strength and stamina (dUs1 + dUs2) that player need to work extremely hard and store more energy internally than is expended in the effort expenditure of energy. It is not just a matter of runny harder, faster, longer distances over shorter time frames; or lifting more weight in greater numbers of reps. It's a matter of converting that expense of energy (Q) in the accomplishment of work (W) without expending more stored energy than is attained through nutrition. This is a fancy scientific way of saying that you cannot over-condition such that you loose weight when you are trying to gain weight, and the opposite is true if you are trying to slim down, in which case there are no magic weight loss pills. The Laws of Thermodynamics will not be cheated by non-existing shortcuts. Players that recognize these simple rules will work hard, eat right, gain muscle mass and become better athletes by knowing and following the simple laws of Thermodynamics. Now having said that, lets look at the spring roster and what goals should be achieved by Fall. I took the spring roster and broke it down into six sorts. Of course the name and jersy sorting is only really convenient for individual specifics. An alpha/numeric sorting of the roster doesn't tell you much except if there are a lot of names that end in "sen, son, escau" you probably have a lot of ancestral Scandinavian and Slavic people on the roster. If the roster has a lot of multi-short-syllable names that include the letter L, K, P and lot, you probably have a lot of players with Pacific Island roots.

What matters is the make-up of the team roster by position, height, weight and experience. That's what I want to focus on in this Spring Roster Analysis. Because this tells us the cloth from which the pattern of fall camp will be cut and sewn together by the newly revised coaching staff.

SIZE & POSITION TYPES
BYU got smaller with graduation and with the high number of RM's returning coupled with incoming freshman. By position group, BYU looks like this:

2 - Deep Snappers Avg 6'-4 and 208 lbs
23 - Defensive Backs (CB's and Safeties) Avg 6'-1/2" and 190 lbs
22 - Defensive Lineman (DE's, DT,s/NG's) Avg 6'-3.3/4" and 265 lbs
4 - Kickers & Punters Avg 6'-2" and 201 lbs
14 - Linebackers Avg 6'-1.3/4" and 221 lbs
16 - Offensive Lineman Avg 6'-5.1/3" and 286 lbs
6 - Quarterbacks Avg 6'-1.1/2" and 199 lbs
13 - Running Backs (Tailbacks and Fullbacks) Avg 6'-1/3" and 209 lbs
8 - Tight Ends Avg 6'-4" and 236 lbs
13 Wide Receiver (WR and Slot Receivers) Avg 6'-3/8" and 190

HEIGHT AND SPEED
BYU got slightly small in some ways. The 2020 roster only included perhaps 7-8 players under 6' tall. the current roster has 17 sub-6' tall players. BYU got shorter. But overall the team average did not change much and is very similar to last year, with the average player standing 6'-2.1/4" tall. DB's and Lineman got slightly taller on average. Wide receivers got slightly shorter on average but overall BYU maintains an average player height in excess of 6'-2" tall and that is very good. The compensating factor for BYU's recruiting more players in that 5'-10" to 5'-11" range. is they are mainly ball handlers and they were recruited in large part for speed. BYU's offensive skill players probably got faster. The defensive players are already very fast and the DB's average height and weight in that 6'+ and 190 range is a very good sign that physicality in the Defensive Backfield will continue as speed improves.

AGE & EXPERIENCE
Much has been said about BYU's youth and there is no questioning that in terms of new and RM faces dotting the position groups in key places. Most of BYU's offensive production from last season is gone. But BYU is not void of talent of experience returning in critical positions that count. PATIENCE WILL BE A VIRTUE AS THERE ARE:

62 Freshman (RS & True) = 51.24% of the Spring Roster
34 Sophomores (RS & True) = 28.10% of the Spring Roster
22 Juniors (RS & True) = 18.18% of the Spring Roster
_3 Seniors (RS & True) = 2.48% of the Spring Roster

This indicates that only about 1/5th of BYU's Spring Roster is upperclassman. Having said that, BYU gets the benefit of having played some Red-Shirt players in only 4 games, getting them valuable experience while retaining their eligibility. BYU is more experienced than it looks, especially in places one would think most vulnerable such as O & D-Lines, Linebacker and Defensive Back positions and at Running Back.

The thing this really jumps out at me is the fact that this roster will really be asked to grow up in a hurry against some excellent competition. BYU faces what will probably be it's toughest schedule in history right out of the gate. With 7 good to excellent P5 opponents on tap, plus BSU and South Florida, the opponent's stack up very well and BYU's SOS will be very good. I believe in many ways this team will be able to follow on the heels of it's predecessor offensively with so many really good QB's duking it out all summer and the quality set at WR, TE and RB the last year. The O-Line will be the make or break reason BYU succeeds offensively. Defensively, BYU is loaded with talent at every position group. The numbers also indicate extreme competition for every position. The addition of some new blood on the defensive coaching staff may also help improve the overall D-side of the program ledger. It needs to. Tuiaki needs to get much more aggressive on the D-Side of the ball.

CONCLUSION
This year will be a growing year, a learning year. But what will this team look like after 4-5 games and again after 12-14 games into 2022? If BYU can compete and stay in the top 30-40 range this season, it is potentially a top 10 contender in 2022. That's my take.