Dick Harmon: JC corner had met expectations early at BYU

Howell says his first look will be to an athlete who will miss the first few weeks of spring football, Bronson Kaufusi.

As a high school player at Timpview, Kaufusi was ranked the No 18 defensive end in the country. At the time, he was 220 pounds at 6-foot-6 and ran a 4.7 time in the forty. Now he is 260 pounds, kept a lot of his speed, and his basketball agility work can’t hurt his footwork.

As the Cougars prepare for the WCC basketball tournament in Las Vegas this weekend with Kaufusi as a physical leader off the bench, the football team awaits his return so he can attempt to do Ziggy-like stuff.

“I guess you look to Bronson,” said Howell. “Your first thoughts are to him, a guy who has many of the same kind of abilities, not identical, but the same in terms of size, strength and ability to rush the passer and stop the run.

“As far as our defensive line goes, it’s a place we have to zero-in. We have to replace Romney Fuga, we have to replace Ziggy and obviously we have Ethan coming back, which is a major bonus, but my mindset is we go see how much is Bronson going to develop.”

Howell was impressed with Kaufusi this past season as a pass rusher and playmaker, and it especially stood out to him because of his limited preparation. This time last year, Kaufusi was on his LDS Church mission.

“He came in as a freshman right off his mission by a few weeks before fall camp in 2012 and now he’s going to have a chance, once basketball is over, to have an offseason, which will make a big difference for him this year. As a freshman he played a lot for us, but he didn’t have an offseason to prepare and condition and get back to football after his mission. I’d expect him to have big strides this offseason.”

The post-Ziggy/Hadley era has begun.

Dick Harmon, Deseret News sports columnist, can be found on Twitter as Harmonwrites and can be contacted at dharmon@desnews.com.