March 18, 2026
By Dave McCann, Deseret News: To the untrained eye, BYU’s defense in 2026 may look a lot like it did 2025; however, if new defensive coordinator Kelly Poppinga has his way, a closer observation will reveal a few tweaks of his own.
“There are things that I’ve liked that I did with Bronco (Mendenhall) and there are things that I’ve gathered from this defense,” Poppinga told the “Y’s Guys” livestream show this week. “I would tell myself, and I have a journal of it — ‘If I ever become defensive coordinator, these are the things I’m doing in this defense, and these are the things I’m doing in (that) defense.”
Sitake elevated Poppinga in January after Jay Hill left for the same job at Michigan. His former special teams coordinator and defensive ends coach has a reservoir of knowledge to draw upon.
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