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Provo

There's something refreshing about Bronco Mendenhall's willingness this fall to stay open-minded and postpone some of his important personnel decision-making until the last seconds. No player wants his head coach to rush to conclusions about who will start and who won't, especially if he's the guy who won't.

But with unsettled situations at quarterback, tight end, and two inside linebacker positions, and the team already in prep mode for the Washington Huskies, Mendenhall's approach could hurt his team, especially if he follows through with his idea to allow those competitions to tumble into the season, using actual games as tryouts.

That's exactly what he is doing by essentially naming two starters at quarterback, Riley Nelson and Jake Heaps, saying both the junior and the freshman will play. It's a strategy that can work, but only inside strict parameters. It's also a cop-out.

Mendenhall's equally equivocal about the other positions, naming tentative starters, but saying multiple guys will play, allowing these fights to spill over into live action against the Huskies, the Falcons, the Seminoles … the Utes?

It's a risky tack to take — for a couple of reasons. One, many of the established players hate it. They want to know who they're counting on, who they're doing battle alongside, who to believe in, who the coaches believe in, and they do not want to have to adjust back and forth between multiple options. Second, it can be divisive. Players are smart. They have opinions about who should be playing. Give them more opportunities to let those opinions grow strong and split, and problems arise.

"We see the talent out there," said Terence Brown, a veteran offensive lineman. "We're not too worried. Whoever is in, it doesn't matter. I personally don't care. The coaches will make those decisions. It's natural to have an opinion, but when you're a team, you just want to win."

Brown seemed sincere, but, really, what else can an active player, who knows the ramifications of speaking out in dissent, say?

In a small survey of former college players, all of them established starters, not one endorsed the idea of letting open position battles endure for anything but the shortest periods in the season. One pointed out that confidence, on the parts of a player himself and teammates and coaches, even if some of it is perception, is too important to let flap in the breeze of indecision.

Before camp started, even Mendenhall said: "If you don't have a starter named, that means no one is playing at a level that makes him a starter."

If that's true at key positions, straight into and through live action, from where is the belief supposed to come? Particularly going up against more-settled opponents.

The exception there is when two solid players, players who previously have proved themselves, are returning to the same position on a team.

Mendenhall recently talked to reporters about the overall effects of more-opaque circumstances — having older players who haven't played much competing against talented freshmen:

"You have to protect the culture of the program, players who have been with you a long, long time, perhaps as long as three years, fighting from a walk-on spot to a special teams role and now get their chance but are going up against a talented true freshman," he said. "If you look at sheer investment and what's best for the culture of the team in place of performance, I usually err on that side. … I've had some bad experiences where I've ruined freshmen by playing them too early when they haven't invested the time."

Still, BYU can't win championships with a bunch of Rudys.

If the culture of the program or fear of ruining a younger player is delaying or muddying decisions in place of relying on day-to-day performance, which the former players said should hold the most sway, Mendenhall could be fogging up his team's path.

It's the coach's job, after all, to know what he's got and make the calls. Making those tough calls and selling them is preferable, the former players said, to stumbling around through the season.

In the case of quarterback, it might work to have Nelson as a situational guy while Heaps gets the heavier load. But if that proportional split evens up too much, game after game, Mendenhall's asking for trouble, especially since the entire offense changes depending on who's in the game.

So far, none of the clutter has damaged the team, according to junior running back JJ Di Luigi, who through camp has created a wider berth for himself.

"I'm seeing a lot of camaraderie out here," he said. "Everyone's becoming friends. We're like a family already. In the past, we've had a few cliques. But right now, we don't have that. Everyone is all about the team. Nobody really knows who's going to be playing at some of the positions. In some cases, it will be by committee. But it doesn't matter, as long as we get the 'W.' "

Getting it in the fog, though, is the challenge at hand.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Gordon Monson Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com. —