BYU Football: Why did BYU target Cade Fennegan and Nick Billoups?

2. Roderick Knows Something we Don’t

I hate to admit this, but why would Cade Fennegan who was the third string quarterback at Boise State behind Sophomore Hank Bachmeier and Senior Jack Sears want to join a team where he is fourth (or fifth) string behind Jaren Hall (SO), Baylor Romney (SO), Jacob Conover (FR) and Sol Jay Maiava (FR)? It doesn’t make sense.

Unless Fennegan was being passed on the depth chart by other freshman at Boise State, he was in a better position to play for the Broncos than he will likely ever be for BYU. Next year, Sears will be gone which would have made Fennegan the likely backup. As it stands now, Fennegan may never make it past fourth string. Unless Roderick knows something we don’t.

In the new age of NIL maybe Conover, Romney or Maiava are about to announce a transfer themselves to a team where they can start immediately for and start to get paid for doing so. At some point the NFL and post football careers start to seem bleak, so why not transfer to an FCS school, get paid some (albeit not a lot) and try to make a name for themselves? In fact, some of these quarterbacks would be starters on G5 squads.  These guys may have a 3% chance at an FCS school to make it to the NFL, but that’s better than a 0% chance never seeing the field at BYU.

Now this is all speculative in my part. I have zero information or leads on this theory other than that it is really the only good reason that it seems that Roderick would offer a fifth quarterback a scholarship and that a Fennegan would leave to come to BYU.

Even if there isn’t a transfer before the upcoming season, it is hard to see BYU keeping all four current quarterbacks after this season on the roster with as many opportunities as there are out there. That would mean having a player like Fennegan could shoot up from fourth to backup in one season.