Hyperbole is always dangerous for a sports blogger. If you throw the phrase “greatest in BYU history” around too much, its meaning ends up diluted. That said, I’m not sure how else to describe the 2022 BYU offensive line. This group is the greatest collective offensive line unit in BYU football history. It’s not an exaggeration. There have been better individual O-linemen, don’t get me wrong–Brady Christensen and the late Nick Eyre were both consensus first team All-Americans and John Tait was the #1 O-line prospect in his 1999 draft class.
Still, top to bottom, it’s hard to argue against this being the overall most talented line BYU has ever produced. The Cougars essentially have eight starting offensive linemen on their roster. Blake Freeland is almost certainly the best NFL prospect in the state of Utah right now and one of the best O-line prospects in the nation, with Clark Barrington also showing up in some draft predictions. Kingsley Suamataia is only a redshirt freshman but, if he stays healthy, will almost certainly be drafted down the road as well. Campbell Barrington, younger brother of Clark, is big, athletic, and talented and got some playing time last year due to injuries. Harris LaChance is a monster and could get serious snaps. So could Joe Tukuafu, who has experience at multiple positions. Reliable returning starter Connor Pay should hold down the center spot. All of this is to say that BYU has an embarrassment of riches on the O-line. But this creates an interesting conundrum: who do you start?
There are givens, of course. Freeland and the elder Barrington are bonafide NFL prospects and will start at the left side tackle and guard spots, respectively. From there, though, things get really muddy. The other three O-line positions don’t currently have defined starters–just lists of players with ‘OR’ separating them. Connor Pay OR Joe Tukuafu could start at center. Tukuafu OR Campbell Barrington could start at RG. Harris LaChance OR Kingsley Suamataia could start at RT. So what can we glean from this?
For starters, I think it’s safe to add Pay to the list of givens. I don’t buy for a moment that he doesn’t start if healthy. He’s more experienced at center than Tukuafu, plain and simple. The right side is a little trickier. Tukuafu is a senior while Barrington is a sophomore–does that mean Tukuafu starts at RG, or do the coaches have enough confidence in Barrington’s talent and athleticism to make him the starter? Alternatively, we might see a fairly even rotation there without a primary starter. The RT spot is even harder to predict. Harris LaChance is a beast, pure and simple. He’s a monster athlete with serious experience and would start without question…except that the guy he’s competing with for the starting job is Kingsley Suamataia. Suamataia is a five-star prospect who chose Oregon out of high school, and looking at how he plays, it’s not hard to see how he earned all five of those stars. He has legitimate top-end NFL potential and he might literally be too good not to start, even as a redshirt freshman. It’s a conundrum. I think it’s likely that Suamataia starts but that LaChance gets serious playing time as well.
Ultimately, this is a good question to have to ask. The depth of BYU’s offensive line should be seriously scary for the Cougars’ opponents this year. There will be multiple O-linemen coming off the bench who would start in an average P5 program. Kalani Sitake, Jeff Grimes, Aaron Roderick, Eric Mateos, and Darrell Funk have each had a hand in building this incredible group and they deserve a ton of credit for it.