I found an interesting look at BYU season

A friend of mine posted this in Facebook, I found the article interesting because it views the success of BYU this year a little different than what others have said or posted.

BYU is 5-1 against Power Five teams that enjoy recruiting advantages. Here’s how it’s doing it (msn.com)

Read it and let’s discuss how you feel about what the writer said!

Kirby Smart, head coach of No. 1 ranked Georgia, places a premium on recruiting. In this piece, he explains how you cannot outcoach recruiting. “It’s 25% evaluation, 50% recruiting, and another 25% is going to be coaching, but if you don’t recruit, you’ve got no chance.”

Apparently, BYU bucks the trend. and Kirby Smart is right but he is wrong: There are things such as injuries, green teams caught early (OSU vs. Oregon), acts of nature (rain hahahahahahahha) and a plethora of incidentals and unknowns

The article goes onto say that BYU may have caught teams in chaos or un prepared to which I wrote in another thread the exact observation. BYU should not of beat Utah but should not have lost to BSU. ASU and WSU were 50/50 games.

great write up on this head scratcher
DICKSON: Just when you think you have BYU all figured out … | News, Sports, Jobs - Daily Herald (heraldextra.com)

The article does have some inaccuracies. The BYU recruiting classes of 2015 and 16 are actually on the roster (more highly ranked recruiting wise) than the 2020 and 21 classes which by and large aren’t active players right now. The premise that BYU has had more practice time than their opponents and therefore is more game ready …… is dubious. All programs had the summer to get ready. And the programs with more money have some better coaches than BYU does.

It is widely known that BYU played a lot of guys in last year’s covid year and their experience has helped BYU prep for a 7 P5 season. No way BYU sits on our current record without a ton of backups to fill in for injuries. No way!
BYU is heads and tails in better shape to battle top to bottom better athletes of the P5s. Credit Sitake.

Has anyone looked at next year’s schedule? Yikes

If I remember right and that is not always accurate being the age I am…
Under Lavell, he never really had star athletes coming to BYU until later in his coaching years. I remember him saying in a fireside or something that the way BYU was able to win games was that the coaches recruited “Good” talent (Not great) and then modified their schemes (offense and defense) to meet the talents of the players. Or something a long those lines.

I think if you have good coaches teaching proper mechanic and technique that will overcome the lack of “Star” ability. I look at the long list of great QB’s we had during his tenure and not one of them were what we call today “Star” players. But the coaches were able to match their schemes to emphasis the skills of the players. Doug Scovil was the master of that on Offense and Fred Whittingham was that on defense.

I should mention that of course the players worked hard and improved their skill as well.

Not sure that can happen today in college football, but I would think if we had innovative coaches devising their schemes to match the talent they have, we might be able to come close to that.

What Mr. Harmon has inaccuracies? Oh the shock of it all! :open_mouth:

Harmon is commonly known in SLC as the BYU Homer… If you did not know that.

I am starting to figure that out!

I get what you are saying and agree that BYU dealt with few superstars. But QB wise, Lavell recruited the best of the best because he knew we needed outstanding QBs. Jimmy McH, Steve Young all won super bowls.

That is true, but non of them were more than 2 or 3 star athlete in high school. What made them great was working with OC’s like Dewey (the originator of Lavell Offense), Scovil, Chow, etc.

Did they list “Star” athletes back then? Not sure about that.

I remember reading Harmon in the Provo paper when I was at BYU from 84 (yes it was sweet to be a freshman in the NC season–today’s ROC had nothing on us!) until 90. Sure he’s a homer–but that just makes up for the writers at the Tribune who hate BYU. What makes Harmon interesting to me is that he has an incredible network of contacts spanning decades, and if he says he heard it from someone, it may not be accurate but at least you can believe he really did hear it from his contact–as opposed to many journalists who hear rumors, make shi$ up, and say it came from “a source.”

1 Like

Tom, Where did you live your freshman year at BYU?

I lived at Wymount Terrace with my wife in June 1977. 3 months later, I was baptized. Graduated 1980

Do you have a second personality named “Tom”.

LOL! Thank you for a good laugh :slight_smile:

I lived in DT 1984-85 school year. Loved it. But my boys and I apparently damaged it so badly that they eventually had to just tear it down :joy:

Do you have one named Jim?

Y’all folk be younguns

I had two kids and working full time in construction and going to school at night (SLCC) in 1984-85 :open_mouth:

Now I am old, decerped and broken down one piece at a time type guy!