College Note - Brigham Young Kody Epps

BYU wide receiver Kody Epps isn't your typical sophomore. Thanks to things like the pandemic and a redshirt year, he is already a veteran in terms of his time as a Cougar since he is in his fourth year. That's one reason why BYU isn't going to rush him back from a shoulder injury, although Epps said with a grin Monday after practice at the indoor practice facility in Provo that if it was up to him he'd be out on the field right now.

"My shoulder is doing a lot better than it could have been," Epps said. "It's been a slow process but they've been taking care of me. I've been staying on top of my rehab, nutrition,sleep and all that type of stuff.

Those things have been the main emphasis to get my shoulder right. " Epps - and many other Cougar players who are recovering from injuries and/or surgeries - aren't just sitting around waiting to heal up. There are still physical things to be done to be ready to go.

"Right now I'm able to do a lot of footwork stuff and work on my legs," Epps said. "I really want to get a lot a lot stronger, a lot heavier with my legs so I can be a lot more explosive and a lot more powerful. " Perhaps more important than the conditioning work, however, is for those players to not lose their mental sharpness.

"I'm just so locked in like when it comes to meetings and stuff," Epps said. "I just want to be as locked in as possible, and definitely someone that (wide receivers coach Fesi Sitake) can rely on to understand the offense. I look at what the running backs are doing, what the linemen are doing, the quarterbacks reads, everything.

I sit in quarterbacks meetings from time to time just to hear that dialogue, see what they're thinking. " - Daily Herald .