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Provo • Devon Blackmon wanted to give his father and uncle some conversation pieces for their return to California after watching BYU's annual spring football scrimmage Friday.

Consider it done.

The senior from Riverside, Calif., made a couple big catches in the actual scrimmage and a long touchdown catch in the preliminary seven-on-seven passing drills before the game, turning BYU's "Friday Night Lights" into the "Devon Blackmon Show" in front of an announced crowd of 14,000 at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

"My dad [Lawal Balogua] and uncle [Binnie Blackmon] came up, and I just wanted to give them something to go home and talk about," Blackmon said.

Coach Bronco Mendenhall and starting quarterback Taysom Hill — who didn't play in the scrimmage but entertained the crowd with some pinpoint passes in the seven-on-seven drills, including the bomb to Blackmon — both praised the senior for his performance.

"Devon Blackmon has improved tremendously," Mendenhall said.

The offense has been far ahead of the defense in spring camp, which isn't quite over, and that showed again Friday night.

When outgoing senior Christian Stewart was the quarterback — he played because the Cougars don't have two fully healthy QBs in camp — he directed the offense on three long touchdown drives in his six possessions.

Walk-on QB Hunter Moore got two chances to move the team, but he didn't get it into the end zone. He did throw a 42-yard pass to Anthony Armstrong that got the offense in field goal range, but Corey Edwards' 52-yarder was short and right.

"Our offense is going to be able to score a lot of points this season," Mendenhall said.

As presently constituted, the defense is going to give up a lot, although the unit on the field Friday was missing probable starters. And it suffered a serious blow on the first play of the scrimmage when junior outside linebacker Sae Tautu went down.

He was eventually helped off the field, and Mendenhall said after the scrimmage that it was likely a right-knee sprain.

As for the defense, which Mendenhall is now directing, "it has a long, long ways to go," the coach said.

Defensive end Remington Peck said the unit stopped the run well, except for a long jaunt around the end by Nate Carter, but that it gave up too many long passes.

"We stopped them a couple times, and they got us a couple times," Peck said. "It was a good battle."

On several possessions, Taysom Hill watched Stewart do his thing about 10 yards behind the action, and the senior who suffered a season-ending fractured leg last fall said it was a good learning experience.

As for his health, Hill said he is still in a little pain but could have played if Friday night's affair was a real game and not just a scrimmage.

"I felt like today that I could have gone, and that I could have been successful," Hill said.

Stewart finished 10 of 13 for 138 yards and a 4-yard touchdown pass to Nick Kurtz. Moore was 2 for 2 for 39 yards. Carter rushed five times for 56 yards and a touchdown, and A.J. Moore had 10 carries for 25 yards.

Linebacker Austin Heder made five tackles.

"Really a fun night tonight," Mendenhall said. "I liked being under the lights. I liked having the fans here and seeing the appreciation they were showing and how much they were into the night."

Twitter: @drewjay —

Cougar highlights

R About 14,000 fans attended the event, which includes a 42-play scrimmage, some seven-on-seven passing drills and a fanfest at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

• Outgoing senior quarterback Christian Stewart gets six possessions and engineers touchdown drives on three of them.

• Receiver Devon Blackmon makes a long touchdown catch in the seven-on-seven work and has two catches for 48 yards in the scrimmage.