The newest coach on the BYU staff is only 30 years old, but Nick Howell has almost a decade of coaching under his belt.

Barry Lamb's replacement with the outside linebackers spent the last three years working for Bronco Mendenhall, the first year as an intern and the last two seasons as a defensive graduate assistant coach (grad assistants are limited to two-year tenures).

Prior to his arrival in Provo, Howell had five years of high school coaching on his resume; two years as an assistant (at Sky View HS and Weber HS), and three years as a young head coach for Ben Lomond HS.

I have enjoyed watching Howell work over the last few years, and actually interviewed him after practice during preseason camp last summer (Cougar Tracks, "Camp Cougar, Day 12," August 21, 2009). Since there aren't too many Nick Howell interviews bouncing around, you can listen to my conversation with Howell from last summer to get a better feel for him and what he has been up to leading up to this new assignment.

I know Nick will do a great job with the OLBs, who figure to be represent one of the significant areas of impact for a defense breaking in a lot of newcomers in the front seven.

At strongside, Jordan Pendleton is a lock to start, but Jameson Frazier played at Sam during spring ball, while Sae Tautu and Zeke Mendenhall are also in the backup mix. On the weakside the battle between Kyle Van Noy, Jordan Atkinson and Frazier will be fun to watch (freshman Alani Fua is a talented wild card at Will). Suffice it to say, Howell has some players to work with.

*******

I return from vacation on the weekend, then hit the road for Las Vegas on Monday. The MWC Football Media Days get underway Tuesday morning at the Red Rock Resort, and Cougar Tracks will have audio from all nine schools' Tuesday podium sessions with coaches and players, in addition to one-on-one interviews with Bronco Mendenhall and BYU player reps Matt Reynolds and Andrew Rich. I will also post Commissioner Craig Thompson's "State of the Conference" address and one-on-one session (scheduled for Wednesday morning).

It seemed that teams used to lean a lot more on quarterbacks to represent them at Media Days; this season, only one QB will be present: Andy Dalton of TCU (who also represented the Frogs last season).

For the heck of it, here's the breakdown of the 18 Media Days player reps, by position:

DBs: 6 (including BYU's Andrew Rich)

OL: 4 (including BYU's Matt Reynolds)

WR: 2

FB: 2

LB: 2

DL: 1

QB: 1

Keep it right here for comprehensive coverage from MWC Football Media Days, starting next Tuesday.

*******

"TRUE BLUE NEVER FADES. BYU FOOTBALL ON KSL."