Bronco has stated multiple times he does not like “Star” athletes then goes on to justify his comments. Just look at Kyle Van Noy, never started as a freshman (Jim brought this up) although he was the best linebacker of the group.
From my observations, it does not seem the problem is that the players can’t run the scheme. They did it against Utah last year and Baylor and USF this year.
I watched KSL sports last night, and their guy (Sorry can’t remember his name, but he was a former player) noticed just how “tentative” the players were in reacting to the play. As if knowing if they made a mistake, they would be pulled. Not sure what “insight” he may have or what access he has to the team, but it seems to bear fruit to an extent.
Personally, I think Kalani or Ed Lamb (who has experience as a DC) or even Kevin Clune (who has experience as a DC as well) should take over calling the defensive plays for the short term. Then do a national search for next year.
Tui could be moved into the AD’s office shuffling papers somewhere.
I know this is a “wish list” here but bring back Steve Kaufusi to coach the D-line again. Not sure if he would want to “come out of retirement”…
His basic primmest was that the defense was “trying to do too much at one time”. People on the defense is trying to do not only their job, but someone else’s job as well to “fix the defensive problems”.
The main point was that each defensive player has to change their attitudes to only do “One thing” and but “do it well”. From doing sound assignment fundamentals, to using proper techinques.
I don’t think Bronco would ever work for anybody else, because one of his greatest strengths is building a culture and program, and you have to be the boss to spearhead that. I want Kalani to publicly name himself the DC and do it right now. BYU has now had 5 TERRIBLE defensive performances in a row. After every game, Kalani says “it’s” his responsibility, and we all know that “it” means our trash defense, and he keeps saying he will fix “it,” so let’s see him step up and do it.
In the wake of the absolute thrashings our D took from Oregon and ND and Ark, let’s not forget that we couldn’t get bottom feeding offenses from USU or Wyoming off the field either. There are two possibilities here: either A) our scheme and coaching are just fine, but USU and Wyo have better players than we do, or B) we have better players than USU and WYO but we have terrible coaching and a terrible scheme. We can’t do much about our talent mid season, but we CAN use an aggressive scheme and see what happens. After all, it can’t get more boring to watch or worse results than what we have seen for 5 straight games.
Like I said before either Kalani or Ed Lamb both have stellar resume for DC. As well as Klune has extensive DC experience.
I think the real problem is not the scheme (all though I hate it), the real problem is that Tui has no skills in how to adjust to what the offense is doing during the game.
I for one would like to know what Tui is saying in practice. Is he blaming the players and not himself? Which was cause players to hesitate or not react quick enough during the game just to avoid being blamed for the defense.
I’ll go to my grave saying that you can’t use a soft 3-8 zone as not only your base D, but your D for nearly every play of every game. But I think you make that point with Tuiaki’s weekly failure to adjust.
Interesting that late in the Arkansas game, I used the term “Keystone Cops” to describe our D in a text to a senior BYU athletic dept official; then I read the Harmon recap article yesterday and he used “Keystone Cops” as well to describe the BYU D. Such an embarrassment.
I don’t think the AD’s office will get involved. But I have to think Holmoe, as a former NFL safety on a great defense, is as embarrassed by the BYU D as most of the fans are right now. We also need to remember that BYU is cheap, so no way BYU fires Tuiaki when they still owe him for the rest of the season. My prediction is that
Kalani will take over the defense–for now
but he’ll hedge and won’t lay the blame on Tuiaki (I was a HC for a long time–I completely understand wanting to have your guys’ backs, but this is D1, where every HC and most coordinators are millionaires, and cash paying fan bases demand answers)
we start to see variety in sets–more 5 man fronts, more guys in the box on early downs, more blitzes, etc.
Our D improves in part because of the new coordinator/scheme, but mostly because the rest of our schedule is super weak.
Tuiaki is back next year
And my new pet peeve is the ridiculous substitution patterns…on offense we almost never sub, because Roderick and Funk want the best players out there as much as possible. But our D is subbing like we need to get equal playing time for every kid on the team. WHO DOES THAT???Apparently Tuiaki thinks our starters are no better than our subs, which is super weird. And where do we sub the most? Yep–on the D Line, where guess who runs the sub rotations…So let me get this right: our OL guys have enough stamina to play every snap every game, but our DL guys are so tired or so bad that they need to be subbed every series? The ESPN announcers were nearly speechless when we subbed all 11 guys on D at once and then gave up a TD on a blown coverage on the very next play.
Bywatter said the same thing. They are trying to do too much and getting out of position. This group would do better in anything but a 3-8 scheme. However, he also was eluding to what I’ve been saying about the offense as well. We should be able to score more than we have been. Sometimes you just have to outscore the other team to win.
Tom,
I was reading a report on BYU defense, and they quoted Tuiaki during the coordinator corner on BYUTV as saying “If you told me we would have scored 35 points, I would’ve sat and dropped eight to make them earn it the whole way, then we would’ve won.”
Since you and other have brought this issue up, I thought it was telling about Tui’s mindset.
Tuiaki dropped 7 every play and put NO pressure on KJJ…allowing him time to stand back there as long as he wanted and pick from multiple open receivers on nearly every play; BUT, just so I’m clear: Tuiaki actually said OUT LOUD that if he had dropped one more guy and given KJJ MORE time, Arkansas would somehow have been more challenged?
I wouldn’t bother quoting Tui. That only gives him more of our thoughts than he deserves. He is a miserable DC. He doesn’t know football, he isn’t very smart, if he didn’t have Sitake he would have never been hired. He simply doesn’t know what he doesn’t know! Get rid of him!!
On another thread you predicted a score of 34-17 for Arkansas. You hit it on the head as to margin of victory, but both defenses were worse than you thought.
It is not unprecedented for BYU to fire a D-coordinator at mid season. Bronco fired Jaime Hill about mid-season in 2010 but Hill wasn’t his cousin. I think everybody has touched on all the issues with the D. I definitely think the scheme has to change and the mass substitutions need to be scaled back. Things can only get better with a few changes because they are about as bad as it gets right now.
If the defense can’t get any better then BYU needs to make every game a shootout like the Virginia game last year. Our offensive talent is good enough
to score big on anybody left on the schedule. Just plan to score nearly every time you have the ball and hope to get a few stops. That’s the only way they were going to beat Arkansas and nobody left on the schedule has talent comparable to Arkansas.
This years D is bad but the D in 1993 when John Walsh was a sophomore was worse. The D had a number of games like the Arkansas game and with the exception of UCLA that year all of those teams were mid-majors. So yeah, I have seen the Arkansas game before, more than a half dozen of them in 1993. That year ended up 6-6 and even in most of the wins the defense was shredded. The difference was the secondary on that team was horrific so nobody tried to eat the clock by running a lot so at least the offense was on the field trading scores. Other teams knew they could pass at will so they did.
