BYU football: Cougar assistant coach Poppinga is learning on the job

The fruition of all the recruiting efforts obviously occurs during signing day in early February, but June is also a big month. June is the month when most college programs hold their camps for prospective players.

All the recruiting contacts made throughout the year are generally designed to get top recruits on campus to further their interest and oftentimes confirm the interest each recruit has in signing with BYU. Leading up to June, every coach on staff has been vigorously mining his assigned recruiting area in order to attract the best talent possible.

"June is a great month for that reason and because we still get to do a lot of recruiting, but we get to do it from home," Poppinga said. "It's great to see a lot of the kids you've been out seeing respond by visiting the camps, but it's not how many kids you can get to come so much as the quality of the kids. At BYU, we want not only the best football players but those players that can represent our program and our standards in the best way possible."

BYU holds its first elite camp, referred to as "junior day," next Wednesday. It will then hold two weeks of camps that are always well attended by local and out-of-state prospects. The attendees often comprise prospects who respond to the message sent to them by coaches. While coaches focus on expounding the virtues of BYU's honor code and other facets of the university, it's plain old football that garners the most interest.

"Players want to know about football and the type of football we play at BYU," Poppinga said. "Since Bronco Mendenhall has been head coach here, he's put forth an amazing record of accomplishments. We share all of that with recruits — the top 25 finishes, the bowl games, our conference championships, our independence, our playing on ESPN, the places we're going to play, our amazing environment and fans — all of those things are what recruits respond to the most I've found."

Email: bgurney@desnews.com Twitter: @BrandonCGurney