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Box Elder High senior Cole Mortensen poses for a photograph outside the school on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. Mortensen is the 2022 Standard-Examiner All-Area Football Most Valuable Player.

BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner

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Box Elder's Cole Mortensen (4) leans for a tackle attempt against Northridge's Zach Smith (19) in a Region 5 football game Friday, Sept. 9, 2022, in Layton.

BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner

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Box Elder High senior Cole Mortensen poses for a photo outside the school on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. Mortensen is the 2022 Standard-Examiner All-Area Football Most Valuable Player.

BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner

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BRIGHAM CITY — Cole Mortensen wore the No. 4 jersey for the Box Elder High football team this season, and it was hard to miss him on the field.

That’s because No. 4 played four different positions.

The senior started at safety, at kick and punt returner, rotated in heavily at receiver, started at placekicker and handled kickoffs for a Box Elder team that went 9-4 with a run to the 5A state quarterfinals.

Mortensen rarely came off the field for the Bees this year and is the 2022 Standard-Examiner All-Area Football Most Valuable Player.

“There were a few plays where he scores the touchdown, kicks the PAT, and then kicks off and then stays out there for defense,” BE coach Robbie Gunter said. “That was kind of rude of us, but …”

There were a few reasons Mortensen played so much.

At safety, he totaled 89 tackles defending the run and pass, grabbed seven interceptions including two pick-sixes, and had 10 passes defended, taking inspiration from how Kai Nacua played the position while at BYU.

On special teams, he took two kickoffs and one punt back for a touchdown while totaling 482 return yards between the two and averaging 30.1 yards per return.

For that, he thanked his teammates who blocked for him and his coaches who told him to return the ball first through the middle and then cut to the outside.

Mortensen totaled 519 yards of offense with five touchdowns. Technically, he scored more points as the placekicker, going 36 for 38 on extra points and 8 of 12 on field goals.

As a freshman, Mortensen showed flashes of an ability to play well at multiple positions and envisioned he’d have some sort of success down the road at BEHS.

“I felt like I’d be doing more than just playing just straight corner on defense. I feel like I could’ve been playing a little bit of offense, maybe special teams here and there, but I didn’t think I’d have this big of a role and I’d be able to help my team as much as I did,” Mortensen said.

Gunter praised Mortensen, who was an Academic All-State recipient, for his leadership this year and called him a “quality young man.”

Defensive game plans always involved Mortensen understanding a lot of different things, and he had the ability to read plays quickly and figure out if it was a run or pass.

Plenty of times, he put his stamp on games in a playmaking role.

“Right off the bat against Kearns, he had an interception for a touchdown, just kept going every week. It got to the point where, ‘What’s Cole gonna do today?'” Gunter said.

The answer to that question: everything but punt, though Mortensen was technically the backup punter.

He snagged a game-sealing interception in a second-round state playoff win at Provo, a game in which he went 3 for 3 on extra points and 1 for 1 on field goals.

Mortensen housed a punt return in a 21-14 first-round playoff win over Highland. In a 12-point win at Northridge, he had four catches for 143 yards and two touchdowns. In a blowout win over Viewmont, Mortensen returned a kickoff for a score and had a 38-yard rushing TD.

Mortensen didn’t mind being on the field much more than other players and taking on the obvious additional risk of injury and exhaustion.

“It’s just fun to be a part with my teammates and fun to be a part of the whole game,” Mortensen said.

The day before an August game against Mountain Crest, Mortensen rolled his ankle. He tested it the day of the game, found he could run in a straight line well enough and played defense only that game.

Box Elder won 27-0 and Mortensen picked off a pass, slalomed from the right side of the field to the left and returned the pick 92 yards for a touchdown, one of his favorite plays from the season.

Mortensen’s do-it-all acumen isn’t exclusive to football. Last track and field season, he won the 100-meter hurdles and high jump at the Region 5 championships, took second in the 300 hurdles and seventh in the long jump.

Back to football, it’s fairly orthodox for one player to play in the secondary, play as a receiver and also return kicks and punts. The unorthodox part of Mortensen’s game is kicking.

“In little league, they knew I played soccer, so that’s the first thing they had me do is come and try and kick,” he said. “We tried to see who could kick it over the soccer goal and I was able to do that, so I was able to be kicker that year and after that, I’ve been kicking.”

Anyone who watched Box Elder this year saw a slow, methodical team that ran the ball and used up a ton of game time in an effort to wear out opposing defenses.

The coaches also did that on special teams and defense as much as they could, just so Mortensen could get 10 extra seconds to catch his breath.

Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.