Provo » Matt Reynolds, broken hand and all, showed up at LaVell Edwards Stadium for BYU's scrimmage on Saturday to help boost the morale of his team and to float his own spirits, too.

It was the first time he'd left his home since the recent surgery that had put the All-America offensive tackle's left hand back together with a metal plate and screws. He needed the fresh air, he said, and his teammates needed to see him back at the workplace, again.

"When guys get injured, it's demoralizing," he said. "It's not just the injury, it's the loss of a teammate. I wanted to show them that I'm still here. Let's keep going."

And, so, Reynolds was still here ... until he made a quick exit when his stomach exploded on him, causing him to burp up the unsettled remains inside his gut, on account of the effects of either the leftover anesthesia from the operation or the meds meant to lessen his pain.

Football can seem wonderful sometimes, glamorous even, right up to the moment your star 300-pound O-lineman blows chunks all over the field.

But Reynolds' teammates, and his coaches, were glad to see him up and about. These days, they are glad to see anybody up and about. Thus far this fall, the Cougars have suffered through a remarkable number of injuries, from the big to the slight, from the laughable to the serious.

All told, at least 24 BYU players have been dinged, having missed time, and there have been other frighteningly close calls, including a lineman rolling up on quarterback Max Hall's leg the other day, causing him to temporarily grab his tweaked knee.

"In all my years, I've never seen so many injuries this soon," said Lance Reynolds, Matt's father and a Cougar assistant for three decades. "It's probably double what we're used to seeing."

The injury count to this juncture, in fact, has been the story of BYU's camp.

Gone with the bend

The worst chapter in that sorry tale is the one featuring Jason Speredon, a junior left guard who tore up his rotator cuff on Thursday in a one-on-one drill. The injury did not appear consequential at first, but a subsequent MRI revealed the depth of the damage: He's done for the season.

Speredon already has endured five major surgeries, one of which -- to repair a ruptured Achilles tendon -- forced him to miss a previous season.

"That's a big one," Lance Reynolds said. "When you think about the work Jason's put in through the years and during the offseason, and now he's going to start, it breaks your heart."

And it messes up your already thin, inexperienced offensive front. The Cougars are replacing four starters along their line, and now are replacing replacements.

Matt Reynolds might be back for the Oklahoma game on Sept. 5, but he said he's not yet sure. His hand broke on a fluky play in which his finger got tangled in a linebacker's jersey and then twisted when the defender moved outside, triggering the break.

"I did on that snap what I do on every snap," he said. "This time, it just got caught."

If Reynolds cannot get back for the opener, it means Hall's blindside likely will be watched and theoretically protected by two redshirt freshmen.

"The problem with losing a guy like Matt is that you're losing a guy who's been to war," said Lance. "Now, nobody up front's been to war. You miss that influence."

Bronco Mendenhall said Saturday he is searching for a balance between tough, physical play in practice and player preservation. He was well aware the intensity level has been high and that intensity has led to productivity. He also knows that last season, when he took his hand off the throttle during practices, he was criticized for supposedly allowing his players to soften.

"We've been hitting a little more," said safety Scott Johnson.

"And I liked it," Matt Reynolds said.

But in recent practices, the sessions have been abbreviated.

Trainer Kevin Morris not only treats injuries, he tracks them, noting how and when they happen. If he spots any trends, he passes those along to Mendenhall, who then makes adjustments.

Mostly this season, Morris has been rushing around, tending to the mounting numbers of the nicked and wounded, from Terrance Hooks' hamstring to Brandon Bradley's sore knee to Houston Reynolds' quad strain to Dan Van Sweden's hip flexor strain to Grant Nelson's AC separation to Robbie Buckner's ... you get the idea.

"I'm considered the Grim Reaper around here," Morris said. "When coaches see me coming, they run."

It's one thing about football that sucks, and every team at every school faces it, and, then, turns quickly away because if the players dwell on those possibilities, they'll start to think. They'll think about catching and twisting fingers and breaking hands and tearing rotator cuffs on routine plays.

And if they do that, if clear thought ever took precedence over reckless abandon, the game would be dead.

"We all realize football can hurt you," Johnson said. "We've all [dealt with] that and we feel bad for the guys who get injured. But you move on, you just put it out of your mind."

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Monson and Graham Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com.