Slowstarts to begin the season

Jeff Call noted an interesting observation made by Bronco which CC has noted for a while. Looks like it has his attention and that he is evaluating what he can do to rectify the trend. Below is the quote:



SLOWSTARTS: The Cougars have started with a 1-2 record in five of Mendenhall's seven seasons at the helm.



Why?



"I have thought a lot about that, because I think we have been 1-2 or 1-3 almost every year," he said. "I have looked into a couple of things. It is interesting, because we play good teams in our openers, and we win. Sustaining that has been another matter. Through the first three games or four games, in most cases. Some of that has to do with who we are playing, and when, and the back-to-back nature of that. Certainly, it could be some elements in design. The last two years, it has been interesting."



Mendenhall said he is going to examine the way the program handles the offseason.



"I am looking at the design through the spring, through the summer. I am talking about the time we can't have any involvement (with players). But I like our fall camp model. If I have missed, I might have missed on the side of staying healthy, which is a hard tradeoff to give up. But I will examine that as well and try to see if there has been any link in maybe having played the first four games."



Despite the lackluster starts, BYU is 5-2 in season openers under Mendenhall.



"Again, the opener hasn't been the issue," he said. "It's been games 2-4, just off the top of my head."



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Well, the last two years have been Heaps fault, so that fault isn't on Bronco. ;-)

Mars, there is some truth to what you say. But Ole Miss was not exactly a top ten team, and we kind of stunk it up down there, lucky to win. And Texas was not that good either, and we laid another egg. There are teams that come out hot early in the season, and some who don't. BYU is one that doesn't, at least lately. This year, BYU has it's first two games at home, so they can't blame the road; and first 4 of 6 are at home. If ever there was a schedule that favors a fast start, it might be this year. Still, Bronco needs to figure out how to come out of the chute hard and fast.

golong wrote:
Mars, there is some truth to what you say. But Ole Miss was not exactly a top ten team, and we kind of stunk it up down there, lucky to win. And Texas was not that good either, and we laid another egg. There are teams that come out hot early in the season, and some who don't. BYU is one that doesn't, at least lately. This year, BYU has it's first two games at home, so they can't blame the road; and first 4 of 6 are at home. If ever there was a schedule that favors a fast start, it might be this year. Still, Bronco needs to figure out how to come out of the chute hard and fast.

Yeah there is no excuse for next year's team to lose at home with a returning D and senior QB. I have tempered my expectations for this team but hopefully if they start out 3-0 they don't begin to get cocky like in 2008. Every year it seems like we have to lose some to finally gel and I wish Bronco could figure out how to get them to just be ready every week.

Washington State is anything but a sure win although we will be favored and have a 65-75% chance that we will win. WSU was improved this year and they will have a very good coach. Hopefully they will still be working out kinks in a new scheme.



Weber State is close to a sure win. BYU is 98-99% likely to win.



Utah will be 50/50 at their place with Wynn back.



I forget if Utah is game 3 or someone else, but although far more favorable, this start is not a gimme.



Eventually 50/50 and even 70/30 games can catch up with you. Hopefully they will not because there is at least one 30/70 game later at ND and we have to hope that BSU is a rebuild and not just a reload.



Oddsmakers are likely to pick our opponent 4 or 5 times in 2012. Hopefully we prove them wrong.



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Let me first say that I love Bronco and I hope he's at BYU for the next 20 years.



In my opinion the slow starts come from 2 factors:



1. Quality of opponent. BYU generally faces some of the more talented teams in the early part of the season.



2. The inability to identify the weaknesses of the team in until a loss or two occurs. It seems like there is always a disconnect between what we think we have when be break camp and what we know we have at the end of September.

Bronco practices to "not get inuries". That seemed to roll over inot how Heaps played. Nelso fires people up to get physical - but Heaps clearly did not. I also think Bronco needs to movepriority 5 aa little closer to priority 4 and put more into preparing for specific opponents. And - yes - the schedule makes a huge difference.



If we reversed our 2011 schedule - Hawaii would have beaten Heaps at that point in the season before they had injuries and point shaving scandals take a toll.



BYU would have beaten NMSU, Idaho, and Idaho State even with Heaps and been 3-1. TCU would have exposed Heaps by bringing pressure. So would OSU. We would have beaten SJSU.



And depending on whether Heaps eventually got bounced, we may have lost to Utah, USU, and Texas late. We might have beaten Ole Miss late. Anyway great start and then a fade at the end is what we would have seen. We might have gotten lucky with Utah catching them after someone else knocked out Wynn. Keep in mind - we almost knocked out Wynn and did injure him. Then UW made the injury worse. So who knows if Wynn would have gone down had we not pounded him to th eground. In that way - we did wreck Utah's season.