BYU football: Kelly Poppinga hopes to instill toughness

PROVO — When Kelly Poppinga heard the stunning news, he was at his in-law's cabin in Schofield, sheetrocking the basement.

It was last Saturday, the day after BYU's humbling 31-16 loss at Utah State. Poppinga, a former BYU linebacker who now serves as a graduate assistant on the Cougars' staff, found it hard to believe what assistant coach Nick Howell was telling him over the phone — defensive coordinator Jaime Hill had been fired.

"I was very shocked," Poppinga said. "It was over (LDS) Conference weekend and it was one of our days off. Not a call I was expecting. Very surprising, not knowing what was going to happen next in the program."

Head coach Bronco Mendenhall, who took over defensive coordinator duties, called a staff meeting Sunday morning. That's when Poppinga received his new assignment: coaching the outside linebackers.

Previously, Poppinga had been helping out the inside linebackers. He now oversees the outside 'backers in place of Howell, who is the new secondary coach. On Monday, Mendenhall told reporters that Poppinga "played middle linebacker in this defense, knows it very, very well. And he knows the culture that I love."

That's how Poppinga sees his new job. It's kind of like sheetrocking the defensive mindset. It's re-establishing a culture and tradition, like the one he played for at BYU in 2006 and 2007, when the Cougars posted back-to-back 11-2 seasons and captured outright Mountain West Conference championships.

"That's my role right now, to establish that culture that's faded away over the last couple of years," he said. "It's a culture of playing with phenomenal effort, enthusiasm, flying around, having fun and causing havoc. That's been lost over this season. Last year, it was there in spots. Now, it's got to be re-established. I think really that's my main role right now, to get that culture back that was here 3-4 years ago."

How did the program lose that culture?

"It's just the leadership. People do things in different ways. Coach Hill had his own way," Poppinga said. "The thing with coach Hill was, he was a really big X's and O's guy. He's very smart, very intelligent. It kind of depended on the rest of coaching staff to keep that culture going without coach Mendenhall having his hand and foot in everything. That's what I attribute it to."