When Stanford visits BYU this Saturday, the Cardinal will face a young quarterback in Bear Bachmeier who they’re already quite familiar with.
Bachmeier spent spring ball at Stanford earlier this year, playing under interim head coach Frank Reich before ultimately entering the transfer portal and landing in Provo.
Though their time together was brief, Reich still had plenty of praise for Bachmeier during his weekly media availability, saying he “wasn’t surprised” that the true freshman won the Cougars’ preseason quarterback battle.
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“My impressions of him were very positive,” Reich said of Bachmeier. “Just from looking at the film and watching the game, he’s an explosive athlete, has a strong arm, is a threat to run the ball. So I kind of figured that having a little bit of that QB run game would be in (BYU’s offense) with him, and he’s got an explosive arm as well … He’s a talented, talented guy.”
This year with Stanford is Reich’s first experience coaching in college. The former 14-year NFL veteran — he’s considered one of the greatest backup quarterbacks in league history — won a Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2018 as their offensive coordinator and served as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers from 2018-23.
In scouting BYU, however, Reich feels that the Cougars’ defense is similar to those he’s dealt with at the professional level.
“This is a very well-coached team, you can see that. They’re a good football team,“ Reich said. ”Their schemes are very sound defensively. I feel like I’m watching an NFL defense with everything they do. I mean, they do a little bit of everything. They’re multiple in every way. Their pressure package is quite sophisticated. (It’s) a lot of stuff you see at the NFL level, and they do a good job of executing it.
“… They have a very good front seven … They have a fair amount of turnover. I think they’re only returning three or four starters from last year, and last year’s unit was really good … They’re tough up front. They’re going to play odd front, they’re going to play some even front. They do it all, and they use their guys well. They mix up what they’re doing.”
Reich continued, “Teams that are complex and have complex blitzes, a lot of times you don’t see those (blitzes) until third down in the NFL because everybody wants to play sound stuff on first and second down. But (BYU), they’ll pressure on first and second down with stuff that you might not typically see until third down, so it presents a unique challenge like that.”
Saturday’s game marks Stanford’s first visit to LaVell Edwards Stadium since 2003 and just the second ever in program history. While Reich said he wasn’t too concerned about the altitude factor of playing in Provo, he did share that his team has taken extra measures to prepare for BYU’s famously-deafening crowd noise.
“Obviously having a bye week, we’ve had a few extra practices, and we’ve been practicing in the noise,” Reich said. “We know that it’ll be a tough crowd there, we anticipate the noise. That’ll be important for us to keep our poise. I believe our guys will do a good job with it, the way we’ve been practicing with (noise) in practice has been good so far.”
Reich never played against BYU during his college days at Maryland, thus never having much direct contact with the Cougars during his career. However, he has spent time both playing and coaching with and against former BYU products over the years, saying he’s gained plenty of respect for the program in Provo.
“Obviously, as a quarterback, I’ve respected over the years what they’ve done offensively,” Reich said of BYU. “And now in recent years, just kind of getting in that Utah mode, that defensive scheme that they’re running is really good. This is a good football program, I think they do it right. They do a good job, recruiting the players that they have that fit their schemes. So we have a lot of respect for them.”
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