PROVO — All eyes were on the quarterbacks as BYU opened training camp Wednesday in anticipation of the 2025 season.
But maybe they should’ve been on the defense, where second-year defensive coordinator Jay Hill’s group won’t make it easy on the Cougars to determine as starter.
And while the throng of reporters wanted to ask head coach Kalani Sitake about his lead signal caller and how reps were divided among incumbents McCae Hillstead and Treyson Bourguet, and true freshmen Bear Bachmeier and Emerson Geilman, the 10th-year head coach of his alma mater couldn’t help but praise the defense.
Sitake is, after all, a defensive guy.
“Jay’s doing a great job with that defense,” he said. “Today was a really good day for them. … We have a lot of work still to accomplish.”
Take it with a grain of salt after only one practice, if you must. But BYU’s defense looked poised and confident as it builds off last year’s 11-2 campaign and a spring season that added a number of key players across the defensive front.
“The No. 1 thing (from the first day) is you want to see where their confidence is,” defensive tackles coach Sione Po’uha told KSL.com. “The first day, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. But it’s about helping them to turn that around and to build their confidence is the biggest thing for me.
“By Aug. 30, when we walk on that field, you want every guy in a helmet to be as confident as ever. It seems like a simple answer, but it’s quite powerful.”
As far as the quarterbacks go, Sitake said all three of the main incumbents were given equal reps as he and offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick work to decide a starter “as soon as possible” following Retzlaff’s transfer to Tulane after a dismissed civil lawsuit that resulted in an honor-code violation.
Hillstead and Bourguet have the most time in the system. But Bachmeier, the newcomer from Murrieta, California, by way of Stanford, was given every opportunity to compete alongside the transfers from Utah State and Western Michigan, respectively.
In some ways, the competition has barely begun. Still friendly, though competitive.
“We’re all super positive, and I think we’re all super focused on what we can improve,” said Hillstead, the former Skyridge High standout. “And I think that gets us all rolling in the right direction.”
Added Bourguet, the Tucson, Arizona, native who spent two seasons in Kalamazoo: “All four of us are trying to compete and win the starting job, obviously. But the person who does that is the person who competes the hardest, gets the job done, takes the easy completions, moves the ball — and scores touchdowns.”
But the fresh-faced younger brother of former Boise State and Wake Forest quarterback Hank Bachmeier certainly made an impression, even earning an equal amount of first-team reps as his experienced leads.
The only thing holding back any of the quarterbacks will be a designated “pitch count” designed to preserve shoulders and arms, which Sitake said was instituted by the Cougars’ sports science staff.
But Bachmeier appeared poised and capable during the limited media-viewing portion of practice. Indeed, he didn’t act like a freshmen — even when he joked with the media for around eight minutes, and explained the origin of his unique name (as well as that of his older brother, Tiger).
If the four-star freshman had any designs of sitting out this season, he didn’t show it.
“Any time you go to a new school, you want to play; you want to compete,” he said. “Obviously, circumstances arose and it opens up an opportunity, so you’ve got to take it and do your best with that.”
Competition will be the name of the game for Bachmeier, Hillstead, and Bourguet — and the rest of the Cougars as the season opener against FCS Portland State approaches.
It’s not just about the quarterback for Sitake, who said he’d love to have a “three deep” of personnel ready to build on last season’s 11-2 campaign that finished a game shy of the Big 12 title game.
The defense looked ready early, as did rising junior tailback LJ Martin, the offensive MVP of the Alamo Bowl win over Colorado last winter.
“He looks great,” Sitake said of Martin. “You saw him at media days; he’s speaking more, becoming a leader, and he’s really comfortable in the offensive system. It’s good to watch him coach the other guys. I’m really pleased with the way he’s matured and grown into his role as a leader.”
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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