271: BYU Defensive Coordinator Kelly Poppinga | Make Yourself Uncomfortable

Kelly Poppinga is the defensive coordinator at BYU. As a player at BYU, Kelly earned both All-Conference and Academic All-Conference honors. As a senior, he led the Cougars with 113 tackles and helped BYU win consecutive conference championships in 2006 and 2007. He later spent time with three NFL teams and was part of the Arizona Cardinals organization during its run to Super Bowl XLIII (43). Kelly has coached college football since 2009, with stops at BYU, Virginia, and Boise State. And as a coach, he has helped develop several top NFL linebackers, including Kyle Van Noy, Sione Takitaki, and Fred Warner.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• Kelly was crushing it at USU when he got the prompting: follow your dreams. That meant transferring to BYU at a time when players didn’t transfer. He lost friends, lost playing time, and even risked losing his girlfriend. And then when he got to BYU, he doubted himself every day as a scout team player. But because he persisted, he ended up as team captain on an all-time great BYU team.
• Even though Kelly and his wife wanted to stay in Provo, they each individually got the prompting, while sitting in the temple, to head to Virginia. Again it was tough. His wife was 9 months pregnant. They had to move across the country. But it paved the way for an amazing run at Virginia, a 13-year mentorship from Bronco Mendenhall, and now the opportunity for Kelly to return to BYU.
• We have to put ourselves in uncomfortable positions for us to grow. As Kelly said, we’re prone to take the easy path, where it’s hard to grow. But by making ourselves uncomfortable, we’re forced to grow.