Provo » Call it the need for speed.

Almost everyone associated with BYU football agrees that the Cougars were a step -- make that a lot of steps -- slow when they faced Mountain West Conference rivals TCU and Utah last season. The Cougars lost those games by a combined 49 points.

To their credit, they went out and tried to do something about it -- even if coach Bronco Mendenhall said in a January interview that execution, or lack thereof, was the "main problem" in the blowout losses.

Most notably, the Cougars turned to the junior college ranks and brought in three cornerbacks in hopes that at least one of them could be the lock-down cover guy they so desperately need.

The juco candidates are Brian Logan, Lee Aguirre and Corby Eason, but the leader in the battle to replace speedy but undersized Brandon Howard at field corner one week into fall camp is Robbie Buckner, a recently returned LDS Church missionary who played his high school football in Arkansas.

Are the Cougars faster this year? While that opener on Sept. 5 against No. 3 Oklahoma will be the ultimate arbiter, the Cougars say they are. It has also helped that one of the fastest players from the 2006 team that went 11-2 and beat Oregon 38-8 in the Las Vegas Bowl, receiver McKay Jacobson, is back from a mission and looking as fast as ever.

"I think we are [faster]," Mendenhall said. "I think it has shown from the first day all the way through -- especially in the secondary. The recovery speed, the quickness, and just the number of balls being knocked down, and passes contended, I think that's where it shows the most."

Logan, Aguirre and Eason could not comment for this article due to BYU's new rule forbidding "newcomers" from talking to the media until after the first game.

But the man whose job it is to harness that speed can talk for them, and defensive coordinator-defensive backs coach Jaime Hill says they are on the right track.

"They are faster, but they have to play faster," Hills said. "Foot speed is really irrelevant. It is how fast you play the game. They are not playing the game fast enough because they do not know the material yet. At some point, they will know the material, and they will play to their speed."

Logan showed some of that speed by running down receiver O'Neill Chambers in the open field at a recent practice. And Buckner, the redshirt freshman, already has shown a knack in camp for getting pass deflections.

Hill said there is a "degree of truth" to the belief that the Cougs were too slow defensively in 2008.

"You do need some speed," he said. "You can't have no speed. But you don't have to be the fastest guy to play in our system. It is system oriented, and if you can process the information fast, you can have lesser speed" and still succeed.

Junior cornerback Brandon Bradley, who will start at boundary corner and across from whomever emerges at field corner, said he agrees "to a certain extent" that the Cougars-are-slow criticism was valid last year.

"It doesn't always depend on just speed," he said. "But I do feel like the work that we did in the offseason helped us a lot as far as quickness and speed goes. I feel like on the whole we are a faster and a quicker team."

BYU quarterback Max Hall said he noticed something different after the first practice session of fall camp.

"It felt fast," Hall said. "I don't know if it was the first day or if it was because we are actually faster. I hope it is because we are actually faster."

Only time will tell.

drew@sltrib.com