My feelings about last night

Football
1

After having a restless night and thinking about the game…

I know Kalani wants to bring back the “Family” feeling of the time during the Lavell years. That is great and support that concept,

The thing is Lavell was the “grandpa” everyone wanted to have, but he hired some assistant coaches that enforced discipline, and held their players accountable. Anyone who was within 50 yards of Roger French, Norm Chow, ■■■■ Felt, etc. during a game, would know that their language would make a sailor blush… They expected “Perfection” in their players and when they screwed up… they got pulled and was given a tongue lashing and explained how to fix thier issue.

Those are the type of coaches we need now, not the happy good ole boy attitude currently of the offensive coaching staff. I have heard both the DC and Coach Kaufusi both rides their players when they make a mistake. that is why they only allowed one touchdown last night.

Let Kalani be the “Dad” to these players, while the Assistant coaches are the meanies expecting perfections…

Our O-line is pathetic, they either allow Tanner to get sacked or hurried. Especially the outside protection. I have heard from a reliable source that Empey does not play the best lineman, but who likes the best… Now take that for what it is worth…but think over the last couple of years just how bad the O line has been… Leads credence to the comment I heard.

Cahoon needs to light a fire under the WR’s. Teach them how to get separation, and catch the dam ball…

Detmer must change his views about Depth Charts(he does not have one, it is more situational)… there is a reason why every football team in the country has them. He also needs to adapt his plays to what Tanner can do… he says he is doing that, but Tanner looks confused and uncomfortable back there.

Just my frustration right now, I am fan, but I can not simply watch bad football… Which is what BYU offense is right now.

Welcome your thoughts and comments.

2

I will comment just because I like you Floyd. Fortunately I watched my son play water polo all day long and that was great. But then I had to get my sister in law to the airport for an all night flight back to the east coast. When you go to LAX it can be a time consuming event on the freeways and at the airport. She has Downs Syndrome so we had to help her get to the gate and then make sure she was on the plane and waited until it pulled away at 9:30. I know nobody needs to know all this but I didn’t get home until after 11 when I noticed the replay starting up on BYU TV. I watched the first couple of Utah plays after the kickoff and couldn’t stand it so I turned it off and went to sleep.

That is what I know about the game, but based on the final score I knew there was no point in watching the game. Based on the comments on this board afterward, I think I made the right decision.

Maybe next week I will watch the game.

3

When you are a fan, you never say never. And you stick to the very end. 19-13 with a couple of minutes to go and knowing the history of BYU and Mangum? Who knows what may have happened if one of those 2 passes were caught and not dropped…
The only frustrating thing was again, the coaches not letting another QB have a shot…

4

Let’s face it, we were lucky to be in that game at all. Utah made mistake after mistake and mostly just stopped themselves. Our offense was pathetic, even when they couldn’t get to Tanner. I defended him last week, but now I see Floyd was right. He’s playing too tight and doesn’t play well from under center. I’m afraid the game has passed Detmer by. They can’t run anyway so there’s no reason to put him there. They need to go back to the spread if they have any hope of salvaging this season.

5

Mike, here is a very good article to read about BYU and our realistic expectations.

We should all take a deep breath and relax…BYU football will be good again, we just have a lot of rust and injuries at key positions

6

more sanity

7

Fish,

I am not trying to say the Pro style is not the right fit, my issue with the offense is the O-line. It is in my opinion the leak link in the offense.

Tanner is rushed or pressured and throws off the wrong foot, which makes catching the ball for the receivers, which turn make them look bad.

8

that is what happens when you have no running game…the D can just pin their ears back and come at you without any consequence.

Enter Tolutau…I do not see BYU doing much with Wisconsin but if Hoge plays and he is very mobile, we could see something. otherwise BYU is a few games from fixing the running game problem.

I think you pointed out the fact that Tolutau is 255 and can run through LBers. Hoge with his athletism could present some problems to Wisconsin.

9

Fish, I appreciate the positivity, but it sounds like the plan is to keep trying to win with lesser skilled, slower players and just make up for it with size. I’m not at all sure this is a recipe for success on the national level. If the plan is to keep getting recruits mainly from LDS kids, who make up a pretty small percentage of the overall population, not to mention that many choose Utah or other schools to avoid all the baggage BYU brings, I’m not sure we have much hope of winning consistently again.

Look at Utah. They have “state supremacy” as Whittingham calls it, so they get the most skilled Utah players, yet they are able to pick up guys from the Deep South and places BYU has no hope of recruiting. Watching BYU play Utah, it looks like Utah is moving in fast motion and BYU is barely moving. The speed advantage is massive which is why we’ve lost 7 in a row now.

So ok, as people on this board like Scott like to point out, BYU is a “church school” and that seems to be what they want to be, but shouldn’t a “church school” play in a “church league” or something? How is it reasonable to ever believe BYU could ever again be competitive on the national stage with this huge disadvantage? Since that’s the choice that’s been made, shouldn’t we be trying to get back in The Mountain West or another non p5 conference? In recent years BYU would probably come in third in conference play, so the MWC seems like a good fit, assuming they’d let us come back.

Obviously my preference would be to see BYU become independent from the church (as Baylor did years ago) and become a more secular institution, but that is not what most BYU grads or LDS people seem to want. This kind of leaves us in limbo, with not many options for a path forward on the national stage.

10

Fun Facts

BYU is not going back to a Mtn West conf…ever.

BYU has 32 million income per year and ESPN makes BYU a nationwide viable team waiting to be included into a P5 conf.

Down year, looking for a QB has always been BYU’s Achilles foot. nothing has changed

Indy is not sustainable so we will see what the future holds.

11

MikeH,
How did Lavell Edwards beat powerhouse with as you put "competitive’ against teams such as Ohio State, Michigan, Miami, etc?

Lavell found that if he can not get the “Talent”, he had to come up with a different scheme that leveled the field for his players. He hired a coach that devised what is now called the west coast offense.

If BYU wants to play on the big boys field, the coaches need to go outside of the box with their offensive schemes.

12

It seems to me that Lavell had the advantage of a scheme no one had seen before. They ran perfect pass patterns with possession receivers, had a good offensive line that could execute complex blocking schemes, ran pick plays to perfection, etc. Teams couldn’t deal with it because they never saw it and didn’t know how to defend against it. But now days everyone runs similar types of plays and knows how to defend them. defenses with better talent can lock down our receivers and pressure our quarterbacks with 3 man rushes and lots of players in the box so we can’t run either.

I take your point though. The game hasn’t really changed that much in the last hundred years or so, so maybe it’s still possible to come up with a winning strategy with inferior talent. I don’t know what that would be though, and I’m not sure anyone else does either. Can we really win consistently with less talent running a pro style option? I would love to see it, but I’m dubious to say the least.

13

Basketball does play in a church league. But, who are you going to get to join us? Notre Dame? Come on. The thing is, it’s not just a church school thing. It’s one where we hold members and non-members accountable with the honor code. That way some bishop who is a BYU booster or huge fan isn’t challenged with how he will rule. So, we lose some good members and non-members. That’s okay. We have won a national championship and had great seasons anyways. I don’t really see that as the problem. We still get the same kind of players that with the right coaches and scheme we can do very well.

14

Agreed! But, I don’t see any signs of thinking outside the box yet.

15

teams with inferior athletes can win against superior talent by one or a combination of the following:

Be more disaplined (better execution). Troy did that to LSU in Sept. BSU did it for years.

You can win by having many average players coupled with exceptional athletes in KEY positions…QB, Running back and receiver and linebackers on defense. That is what BYU has and is known for. QB central or QB factory. BYU was 8 points from being undefeated last year with NFL talent in Hill and Williams. This year we have failed at QB so BYU is a punching bag anyone should salivate over. Very simple.

BYU will be back

16

the thing you should remember is that those players did not run crisp routes at first, it took time to get them to the point of Calhoon.

what in my opinion made the difference is the attitude of the players. it they could touch it the can catch it… the Koz!

17

how can you do that when not one of the current BYU receivers can create space ?

18

I like the way Talon Shumway going after those bad passes that he was able to catch them. Other guys just kept on dropping them.

19

Floyd,

I usually argee with all that you post, at least most of your post, most of the time.

“The thing is Lavell was the “grandpa” everyone wanted to have, but he hired some assistant coaches that enforced discipline, and held their players accountable”.

Two words: (Jim Mac Mann)

I watched an after game press conference when Jim was being interview on National TV. He has a cigar in one hand,
a beer in the other hand, and the network had to bleep out the F work in each sentence. He had just won another big game for BYU. He went on to winning many more games for BYU. I think a better word than accountable would be tolerance.

" Cahoon needs to light a fire under the WR’s. Teach them how to get separation, and catch the dam ball…"

I totally agree with this Cahoon quote. I loved Ben all the time he was playing for us at BYU. I truly feel that he was at or near the top of the list for being our best Wide Receiver ever. I loved him on his Canadian League for what, 14 years?
He was probably one of the best. He is a Hall of Fame Player. I do not see any carry over into the Wide Receivers that he is coaching at the Y. I still love him. He needs to lose some of his modesty and show his own playing film strips. He is great. He needs to let his players see how great he was and teach them and inspire them to make the same effort that he made while showing the world his greatness. His players must make the same effort.

Detmer need to figure out a way, (perhaps with an assistant coach), to give all the back up QB’s 2nd, 3rd, 4th string, back up’s many, many, many more reps each week without taking away that valuable rep time from the probable starters and back up. I don’t know how, but Ty is smart enoung to figure out a way.

20

Grasshopper,

“The only frustrating thing was again, the coaches not letting another QB have a shot…”

Are you kidding me ???

Our first string QB was out injured from the last game.
Our second string had us ahead 24-7 before he got injured and had to leave the game.
Our 3rd string QB was not prepared and he kept throwing Interceptions. Not enough practice reps.
The fourth string QB came in and was worse and had to leave.
The 5th and 6th string QB’s were red shirted, to skinny, no reps, did not know the plays, at at least one of them just got off his mission.