Even though head coach Bronco Mendenhall has a defensive background, his 2008 Brigham Young football team figures to be an offensive juggernaut.

The two-time defending Mountain West Conference champion Cougars return 10 starters from a unit that averaged 442.8 yards and 30.1 points per game. When BYU started spring practice on St. Patrick's Day, the offense, as expected, quickly started playing as if already in midseason form.

"It's nice to have experienced players on offense," Mendenhall told the Deseret Morning News. "It didn't take nearly as long for the execution to be clean maybe as it was the second or third week last year, offensively. There are a lot of new faces defensively that are willing. We just need to teach them what to do."

The rebuilding project is a bit bigger than it was last season on defense -- with eight starters gone from 2007 -- but the Cougars still had to replace several key players a year ago and finished 10th in the country in yards allowed (307.9) and ninth in scoring defense (18.5).

Credit Mendenhall for rebuilding the machine that is BYU, which should again vie for a conference championship in 2008.

The Cougars have plenty to build around, starting with junior quarterback Max Hall, who made a near-seamless transition after taking over as the starter from John Beck in 2007. Hall may not match the 3,848 passing yards from last season, but that's only because BYU has its deepest stable of running backs in years.

Redshirt J.J. Di Luigi, who sat out 2007 with a broken foot, will provide even more firepower to the Samoan trio of Harvey Unga, Fui Vakapuna and Manase Tonga.

Junior defensive end Jan Jorgensen became one of the best players on that side of the ball in the conference last season, and his presence should help BYU recover from losing four starters in the secondary.

Mendenhall has such confidence that the defensive scheme and philosophy are in place that he removed himself from the defensive coordinator position and handed it to cornerbacks coach Jaime Hill in the offseason.

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