A New Punt Returner Has Emerged for the BYU Football Program

BYU wide receiver Tiger Bachmeier in Fall Camp | BYU Photo

On Saturday, the BYU defense suffocated the Stanford offense in a 27-3 win over the Cardinal. While the defense was excellent, the offense was sloppy. Penalties and drops cost BYU anywhere from 8-15 points. The Cougars will look to clean up those issues in the bye week before traveling to take on ECU in week four.

Another area that needs to be cleaned up is in the punt return game. BYU punt returner Parker Kingston, who had two punt returns for touchdowns a season ago, has fumbled the football twice in six punt return attempts.

After he fumbled a punt against Stanford that was recovered by fellow wide receiver Cody Hagen, BYU put Stanford transfer Tiger Bachmeier back to return the next punt. Bachmeier had a 44-yard punt return despite BYU having only 10 players on the field to block for him.

BYU special teams coordinator Kelly Poppinga said the starting punt return job is now "probably [Tiger's] job to lose."

"Ball security is the number one goal for our whole team," Kelly Poppinga said on Coordinator's Corner. "That's something Kalani emphasizes every single team meeting, every practice when you come to practice, he is yelling ball security...It's our livelihood. So for that to be on the ground for two weeks in a row with Parker, you know, I feel bad because he's a good player, but at the end of the day, there's accountability that has to be taken forward. Tiger was put into the game and Fesi's the one that coaches the returners, so he was the one that made that decision. We talked through it and felt like it was time for [Tiger] to get an opportunity and yeah, I'd say for right now it's probably his job to lose. He's done it at Stanford. He was really good...I think going forward right now as the punt returner, yeah, we'll probably go with Tiger.

Poppinga clarified that Kingston could get other opportunities in the future. "I'm sure Parker will get other opportunities," Poppinga said. "But I think Tiger is more than capable, as you guys saw a big punt return in this game that set up one of our touchdowns."