Looks like Nick Howell is out as DC

and Bronco is back in the saddle as DC…

This is according to an article on the front page of Cougarfan (have fun getting to it) and a tweet by Nick Alletto…

I hope this is a step towards the defenses we saw two and three years ago.

I would like the HC to be the HC and learn to mange the game and the clock better. However, given the success of Bronco’s D vs. the awful D this last year. I would not mind Bronco reworking the D to be as good as it has in previous years…except I would like the secondary to actually be good not the bend but hopefully don’t break too badly.

I don’t know-I’m getting tired of defensive coordinators getting the axe, then Bronco rides in like the white knight to fix things. Dude-Howell was your guy-you should be as responsible as he was for the defense-it’s not like you were trying to offensive guru the offense-exactly what were you doing? Sorry getting tired of the drama and I’ve always been a big Bronco supporter.

As long as BYU plays the gfgh I don’t believe that the defense can improve because of the lack of depth of the over all team caliber of players skill sets.

One thing I thought interesting is when the Offense suffered like the defense did this year… Bronco had all the offensive coaches re-apply for their jobs… He renewed the ones he wanted to keep…

Well did you see that happening on the defense? Nope…

Making assistants re-apply smacks of desperation and is terrible for morale (ask UofU how that worked out for them lately). Howell is the only guy on the chopping block anyway, because he was the DC of a terrible defense and even worse, his position group (DBs) was abysmal. Kaufusi (DL) and Poppinga (LB) are safe–both studs who have produced lots of at least borderline NFL caliber talents in recent years–just off the top of my head, Fangupo, Fuga, Eathynn, Ziggy, KVN, 'Tree, Kaveinga, Unga, Hadley. I for one am really glad Bronco is taking control of the D again.

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Tom,

Do you think the DB’s and the LB’s did a good job? I think the only one safe was Kafusi as DL coach.

My point was that when this happened on Offense Bronco made them all reapply for their jobs, but nothing when it came to defense. That smack of favoritism to me.

one thing you should note with your comment about Utah is that it was not a reapply type thing. They only gave the assistants a one year contract because I think AD office was anticipating firing Whittingham and all the coaches. Dumb move on Chris Hill’s (AD) part.

Thanks for filling me in on the UofU situation–not living there, I don’t get much of their news first hand. I don’t like Whitt at all, but I think he’s a good coach and it would be hard for them to do better. I think Pop is safe because he is the recruiting guru and his LBs have been a bunch of studs for years. I’ll call this year an anomaly and give Pop a pass. If Takitaki, Warner and Langi can stay on the field, I think we could be real good. And LB Butch Pau’u was a major league MLB who is coming off a mission soon if not already. Another RM we may see is Sawyer Powell, who in HS was Nike Sparq’s top rated LB in the country, measured SOLELY on measurable athleticism. He was a total athletic freak. On the DBs, I thought they were terrible. I don’t even know where to start. We made 8 or 9 QBs look like Heisman contenders. Our pass rush was lousy, but our 27 sacks were 3 more than we had in 2013, when we had a great D. Our DBs simply got shredded weekly, by all comers.