{"id":6503,"date":"2025-04-28T08:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T08:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/6503\/"},"modified":"2025-04-28T08:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T08:29:10","slug":"how-byus-weylin-lapuaho-got-his-unique-name-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/6503\/","title":{"rendered":"How BYU’s Weylin Lapuaho got his unique name \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the last three seasons, Connor Pay and Brayden Keim have been mainstays on the BYU offensive line. Oklahoma State transfer Caleb Etienne joined those two in 2023 and also vaulted to a leadership role in the offensive line room.<\/p>\n

What happens now, with those three stalwarts from the 11-2 season heading off to take a shot at making an NFL roster? Offensive line coach TJ Woods<\/a> said there is a leadership void to fill, and how that pans out will go a long way in determining whether this 2025 group is as productive as the 2024 group.<\/p>\n

\u201cLosing Brayden, losing Connor, losing Caleb will be tough,\u201d Woods said midway through spring camp. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I can overstate the impact of those guys not being here. They had a big presence to them, all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Special Collector’s Issue: “1984: The Year BYU was Second to None”<\/p>\n

Get an inclusive look inside BYU Football’s 1984 National Championship season.<\/p>\n

Two candidates to fill the void are senior left guard Weylin Lapuaho and junior center Bruce Mitchell, perhaps the two most dynamic guys coming back in 2025. Other probable starters in Woods\u2019 second season running BYU\u2019s O line<\/a> are tackles \u2014 Colorado transfer Isaiah Jatta and Michigan transfer Andrew Gentry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The starting right guard is up for grabs, currently, with juniors Sonny Makasini, Austin Leausa and Kyle Sfarcioc, a transfer from SUU, in the running.<\/p>\n

While Pay, who never had trouble coming up with some quotable content for reporters, will be sorely missed as one of the bigger personalities to come through Provo in awhile, Lapuaho isn\u2019t bad in front of a microphone, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeylin has a way of keeping everybody loose,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

Lapuaho had surgery on his ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) on the inner side of his elbow and missed spring camp while recovering. However, he was at practice almost every day, encouraging his teammates and showing the leadership that head coach Kalani Sitake and Woods want to see from the three-year starter.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel very confident about us this year,\u201d Lapuaho said. \u201cA lot of us have played a lot of college football snaps and a lot of us can play a variety of positions. We\u2019re versatile. It\u2019s going to be a great year for the offensive line. We look solid.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rising senior from Bingham High who played his freshman season at Utah State also has one of the better first names on the team; his mother, Kelly, is from Montana and a \u201cbig country music fan,\u201d he said, so she named him after the country music singer Waylon Jennings, albeit with a different spelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a little country girl,\u201d Lapuaho said. \u201cShe wanted me to be a little different, stand out from everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

He does that with his size alone, weighing in at 310 pounds and standing 6-foot-4. He\u2019s the cousin of former BYU standout offensive lineman Ului Lapuaho, who played from 2014-18.<\/p>\n

However, Lapuaho didn\u2019t grow up cheering for the Cougs. His dad, Sam, was \u201ca very big BYU fan,\u201d but mom ruled the roost and the family had season tickets to University of Utah football games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was good for him to come back one more year. You know, it was touch-and-go for awhile there with him. In my opinion, he\u2019s a Sunday player. So we are thankful and we are excited he is back with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0BYU offensive line coach TJ Woods<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I was a little bit torn growing up, but I am really glad to be here now,\u201d he said, adding that the entire family\u2019s favorite team is the NFL\u2019s San Francisco 49ers.<\/p>\n

At Bingham, he helped the Miners go 8-4 his senior season before a loss to eventual state champion Corner Canyon in the 6A quarterfinals, and was a consensus three-star prospect. However, BYU didn\u2019t show much interest in him and he signed with Utah State.<\/p>\n

While an Aggie, he started all 13 games in 2022 and blocked for 1,000-yard rusher Calvin Tyler Jr. But then the transfer portal beckoned, and BYU didn\u2019t whiff the second time around.<\/p>\n

\"\"Utah State offensive lineman Weylin Lapuaho (61) celebrates a touchdown by the team against BYU during the first half of an NCAA college football game Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022, in Provo, Utah. (AP Photo\/Rick Bowmer) | Rick Bowmer, Associated Press <\/p>\n

\u201cAs of right now, with injuries and everything, I think I will most likely play left guard again this season,\u201d Lapuaho said. \u201cBut if something happens like it did in the Houston game and I have to kick out to left tackle, then I will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lapuaho said he \u201cdefinitely\u201d gave the NFL a look after his junior season, but decided to return and get his degree this December in family studies and work on his craft at the college level one more year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI weighed my options with both, and it was definitely the right decision to come back and develop a little bit more, and get better, and sharpen my skills,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a kid I always told myself I am a three (years) and out guy and that was just the dream. So it was hard giving up on that, but the dream is still not over. We will get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woods, who replaced Darrell Funk after the Cougars\u2019 5-7 season in 2023, said Lapuaho \u201cabsolutely has what it takes\u201d to play in the NFL one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was good for him to come back one more year. You know, it was touch-and-go for awhile there with him (turning pro). In my opinion, he\u2019s a Sunday player. So we are thankful and we are excited he is back with us. He has been on the shelf (injured) a little bit, but will be back for us in the fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Kelly Lapuaho, of Taylorsville, holds a sign of her son, BYU offensive lineman Weylin Lapuaho before a game against Arizona held at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the last three seasons, Connor Pay and Brayden Keim have been mainstays on the BYU offensive line.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,3309],"class_list":{"0":"post-6503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-news-feed-local"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114414653556347764","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}