Casey Poppinga

By: Jeremy Seeley Athletic Media Relations Student Assistant

Two young brothers shoot hoops outside their home in Evanston, Wyo. Frustration sets in. One fouls the other. The other retaliates. They skirmish. Their mother breaks up the fight. The game is never finished. It never will be.

"I don't think we ever finished a game," said Casey Poppinga, Utah State's starting tight end. Poppinga said such occurrences were common to competition between him and his younger brother Brady.

And against BYU, the two brothers will be lining up against each other on a larger venue. Brady will suit up at defensive end for BYU and Casey will face him at tight end.

"I haven't played against (him) since 1995, so I don't know how it will be," Casey said. "We didn't get a chance to go against each other last year because he was on special teams. I'm sure there will be an extra effort. You don't want to get beat by your brother. When we do go against each other, we put forth our best effort. It always brings the best out of me and him."

Casey jokingly said that no one should be surprised if the two start fighting and his mother runs out of the stands shouting, "Don't make me separate you two!"

In truth, his parents will behave and so will the brothers. "My dad said, 'I'll be cheering for you to catch five or six balls and score touchdowns, and I'll be cheering for him to make sacks for losses.' My parents are going into this game cheering for both of us," Casey said.

But Casey hopes that his parents will have more chances to cheer for him than for Brady. In his senior season, Casey clinched the starting spot, and has seen more action. He is fifth on the team in receptions and provides pass protection and rush blocking, which he said will be key in the game versus BYU.

"Against BYU, we have to have pass protection," he said. " And the guy we need to protect from is my brother. That's one of the things we'll be looking at. He's got an amazing pass rush.

"If we can give Jose (Fuentes) enough time, we'll do an excellent job. Another thing we have to do is get a run game. That's definitely something we have to do. That will open up everything else we want to do."

For Casey, football has been a way to open up everything else he wants to do.

Seven years ago, Casey met his wife Britt while at a football camp at BYU. She was also involved in athletics and was attending a basketball camp. Actually, they had met once before in Wyoming. Casey was eating at a restaurant where Britt worked.

"She told me I was the first guy she ever gave her number to," he said.

They kept in contact until Casey went to Brazil on a mission for the LDS church in 1997.

"She wrote me on my mission and, I guess you could say, she actually stayed true to me," he said. "We were married about six months after I got home."

Now Casey has a two month old son, Treyson. The new addition to his family has brought some changes to Casey's life-style.

"It's awesome," Casey said. "But it's a whole different story now. I can't go home and take a nap and be lazy. I have to help the wife take care of the kid. I help feed him and change his diaper. My wife has been gracious enough to take him at night. But I can't rest as much as I did before."

Playing football has also helped Casey in academic pursuits.

He spent his freshman year at the University of Wyoming where he lettered as a tight end. He then went on a mission which he credits for helping him become a better football player.

"One of the biggest things a mission does is help the maturity factor," he said. "You get in a lot of situations in football that are really similar to life situations. Not everything you do in football

deals just with the field. There are situations when players have conflicting attitudes and personalities."

He also said it helped him become a leader.

"On a mission you learn how to be a leader," said Casey. "That's what they train you to be. That translates into on the field and off the field being an example. When your in the locker room or on the road everyone has their eyes on you."

When Casey came home from his mission, he found that his newly acquired personal growth wouldn't be much use on the Wyoming team. Wyoming had changed coaches, and offenses.

"When I came back from my mission, (the new coach) decided to get a new offensive coordinator and a completely new offense with no tight end. I could have either played defensive end, which the coaches wanted me to do, or I could have played tackle, and I didn't want to get fat.

"I said, 'What I want is to be a tight end.' so I started looking at schools that were interested in me and Utah State was by far the best option I had. I made the best decision."

Since coming to Utah State, Casey has received a degree in marketing and is working toward an MBA. He has also made some good memories.

"My favorite memory of playing here is probably the New Mexico State game two years ago," he said. "Emmett (White) broke the NCAA record. That was an amazing game for everybody, especially the offense. That was the game where everything went absolutely perfect."

During the off-season, Casey enjoys many outdoor activities which he picked up in his home town of Evanston, Wyoming.

"We're a huge hunting family," Casey said. "During football season we always managed to go hunting every weekend we possibly could after the football games.

We do a lot of water skiing. It's such a small town. There is not much to do. There's no mall or anything like that, so you go hunting, and water skiing and snowmobiling. You go camping a lot. We go up to Jackson Hole and float the river at least twice in the summer."

But since he started playing college football, the hunting hasn't been possible. Neither has spending time with his family, especially his brother Brady.

BYU football is coming to Logan, and the two brother will be able to spend some quality time together on the field, but Casey doesn't give much credit to the hype around the intra-family matchup.

"The nicest thing about football is that there are still ten other guys on each team," Casey said. "If this was like the PGA tour and we were going up against each other in match play it would be a huge deal. We'll be lining up against each other at most 10 or 12 times and I think that's insignificant. When we do go against each other, it won't really affect the outcome of the game." Unless their mother has to break up a fight and drag them both home by the ear.