Bronco

Today some want to fire Bronco, some think he is at best a man of average intelligence, some think he does not care, and some think his priorities are all wrong. This is perhaps the wrong time for me to defend the guy, because I do think the coaches did not do us well in the Utah game, but the venting, while understandable, is not sustainable.



First, I think there are very very few qualified persons who can navigate the course Bronco has to take at BYU. Whit didn't want it. Bronco has a very strict honor code to deal with. Bronco does not have a BCS conference affiliation to use in recruiting. Bronco has perhaps a score if not more players coming and going on missions at any given time. These are hurdles no other coach has to deal with. I think Bronco's structuring of these things as he has is intelligent. I can't think of too many others who could do it better. Can you?



Second, the fact that a man does not react the way you react to a loss or the way you think he should react to a loss, does not mean that person is weak, shallow or uncaring.



The loss hurts. This is a game we should have won. This is not a day in that pain and anger to demand Bronco's head or challenge his heart or intelligence.

Over all, big picture, all things considered, one has to be generally happy with Bronco. Even if they, including myself, are disgusted with him today.

+1

BoiseBYU wrote:
Today some want to fire Bronco, some think he is at best a man of average intelligence, some think he does not care, and some think his priorities are all wrong. This is perhaps the wrong time for me to defend the guy, because I do think the coaches did not do us well in the Utah game, but the venting, while understandable, is not sustainable.



First, I think there are very very few qualified persons who can navigate the course Bronco has to take at BYU. Whit didn't want it. Bronco has a very strict honor code to deal with. Bronco does not have a BCS conference affiliation to use in recruiting. Bronco has perhaps a score if not more players coming and going on missions at any given time. These are hurdles no other coach has to deal with. I think Bronco's structuring of these things as he has is intelligent. I can't think of too many others who could do it better. Can you?



Second, the fact that a man does not react the way you react to a loss or the way you think he should react to a loss, does not mean that person is weak, shallow or uncaring.



The loss hurts. This is a game we should have won. This is not a day in that pain and anger to demand Bronco's head or challenge his heart or intelligence.

I can't believe that anybody thinks we need a new coach. Do they really think that would solve all our problems and miraculously make BYU the perennial national champion?

Look what happened with the guy who took over from Lavell. It seems to me that we would have a greater chance of getting a Crowton than an Edwards. I don't understand the negativity toward Bronco. While he isn't always successful, and sometimes is out coached, neither was Lavell, and he was also sometimes out coached.



Lavell was a great coach and a great person, and from everything I could ever see, his greatest priority was not football, but the lives of the players he coached. While Bronco has some advantages over Lavell, Lavell had one advantage that, IMO, no coach will, or can, ever have again. He revolutionized football on the last available frontier. Before Lavell, it was primarily a running game. After Lavell it has become a passing game. Others are given a lot of the credit for the revolution, but if you look at the chronology, I think it's plain that Lavell is the grandaddy. Before He won a national championship by passing, nobody really figured out how to defend his offense. Although it is still a very effective weapon, defenses are now much better against Lavellesque offenses. No one will ever be able to completely befuddle good defenses with a good passing attack again. Bronco also continues to have Lavell's greatest disadvantages: the honor code (or just plain being an LDS school), missions (sometimes the perceived expectation of pressure to go) and academics. Even amoung LDS recruits, where this can, and should be an advantage, it is sometimes a disadvantage. A number of the U's best players are there because of one or more of these factors (ie. Star L. He really wanted to go to BYU).



I think Bronco is a great man and a great coach, and we are very lucky to have him at BYU. There is very little chance of any alternative being anywhere near as good.

As the bball mess up on the hill has so eloquently demonstrated, a revolving door of coaches isn't the pathway to success.



For all of his faults, I can't think of any realistic candidate that would or could step in and do any better. I'm scared to think about what might happen if/when bronco decides to call it quits.



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My biggest, and maybe only real complaint, about Bronco is is unwillingness to embrace talent as the main reason for winning football games. I know he can do phenomenal things with less talented personnel. Talent wise, Utah should blow us out every year. They are much more talented than we are almost to a man, but we hang in, scrap and claw, and keep it close or occasionally win this game.



If he would embrace talent, get them to come here, put them in, and coach them up like he does these less talented individuals, we would be so much better. His stubbornness and, yes I'll say it, arrogance have cost us players, wins, and more success.



Bronco has shown the ability to change in other areas, but this seems to be the one area that he refuses to bend. I just don't understand it.

I think we just need a new OC and a new OL coach.



Bronco is great at recruiting. Great at defense. Great at navigating the troubled waters of BYU. He's just not great at picking out good coordinators.

stuckinbig10country wrote:
My biggest, and maybe only real complaint, about Bronco is is unwillingness to embrace talent as the main reason for winning football games. I know he can do phenomenal things with less talented personnel. Talent wise, Utah should blow us out every year. They are much more talented than we are almost to a man, but we hang in, scrap and claw, and keep it close or occasionally win this game.



If he would embrace talent, get them to come here, put them in, and coach them up like he does these less talented individuals, we would be so much better. His stubbornness and, yes I'll say it, arrogance have cost us players, wins, and more success.



Bronco has shown the ability to change in other areas, but this seems to be the one area that he refuses to bend. I just don't understand it.

I agree with this criticism. I'd also like to see him improve in one other area, and that's game planning/management. Bronco is a great program builder and manager, and that's 90% of college football. Because he's built a great program and system, I think he can win 75% of his games just by having the system in place.



The remaining 25% of the games require him to win in the in-game tactics--let's face it, Bronco Mendenhall isn't the best game planner/game manager/in-game tactician around. I tend to have low expectations when BYU faces teams with great coaches--it's a big achievement for BYU to beat Utah, TCU, or Boise State because I don't have much faith in the coaches to put the players in the best positions to win those games. At the very least, Bronco could hire an offensive coordinator that help him plan and manage games better, because this problem seems more acute when BYU is on offense.



The really elite coaches at the college level have skills as program managers and game managers. I think one reason that Bronco gets overlooked as a rising star in the coaching profession is that he's weak in the game management compared to his peers like Whittingham, Peterson, and Patterson.



I don't want to fire Bronco either--it would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater--but I do wish he'd make some changes. Otherwise, I'll continue to pencil BYU in for 8-9 wins a year and not buy in to the "National Championship is the goal" hype.

I agree with Gunk, above.



Bronco, if he has any one real weakness, is that he over emphasis the need to instill leadership and help others become more. I don't know if this is something that is innate in him, or if when he was hired he was told something about how LaVell Edwards had groomed so many coaches for leadership, and he should look to emulate that.



Bronco needs to look for proven commodities as coaches, not unknowns. Has he ever hired a coach with serious outside coaching experience? DuPaix may be the most experienced coach he's ever hired, and that just isn't good enough.

And for any of you guys who for one minute does not think Bronco cares...check the video of him going after the classless Ute taunter after the game. I can't link to it, but it is on a tweet to the right. Police stepped in. He cares; it hurts; and any you guys challenging his heart and desire do him wrong. He may need to do better picking coordinators and he may not prepare as well as Whit, valid concerns, but challening his heart is outrageously offensive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFsTs9QhQNU&feature=youtu.be&a

Bronco may not be the tactician that Nick Saban is, but he also doesn't scream right in his players faces when up by 40 points.



He may not be the recruiter that Chip Kelly is, but BYU players stay out of police beat and the NCAA compliance department doesn't need a full time staff member on site.



Being head coach at BYU requires far more than X's and O's. That is highlighted every time Utah gets a talented player with questionable character (or grades, ie Star). Bronco puts together a group of guys that I am proud to call my team. BYU is one of the few programs that has never been on NCAA probation. Bronco has gotten the team not only squeaky clean but highly competitive.



I am convinced that there is nobody who could currently do Bronco's job better.



The problem, with Utah at least, is they are in our heads. I think that is why Bronco stresses that it is just another game. If BYU had played like it was just another game then you wouldn't have had all the false starts and errant snaps that ultimately cost us the game.

Isola wrote:

I am convinced that there is nobody who could currently do Bronco's job better.

Which job is that? Bishop or football coach? Bronco is a great spiritual leader and DC, but his hands off approach to everything on offense has killed this team the last 3 years now. We are BYU and our offense sucks!

hawkwing wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFsTs9QhQNU&feature=youtu.be&a

Haha, love how the stupid Ute starts backing away the moment Bronco turns towards him. Then when Bronco moves along the dumb Ute takes a step forward.

mizzoucoug wrote:

I am convinced that there is nobody who could currently do Bronco's job better.

Which job is that? Bishop or football coach? Bronco is a great spiritual leader and DC, but his hands off approach to everything on offense has killed this team the last 3 years now. We are BYU and our offense sucks!

First off, BYU head football coach is both bishop and football coach. You have to do both.



And if you think there is someone better for the job, then name Bronco's replacement.

"And if you think there is someone better for the job, then name Bronco's replacement."



This. I am not the biggest fan of Bronco. I'm very skeptical that he can bring us to the level of national prominence that we want to achieve. That being said, I'm pretty sure that right now there isn't a single person who wants the BYU job and everything that comes with it, who could do better.

DarthMagnus wrote:
"And if you think there is someone better for the job, then name Bronco's replacement."



This. I am not the biggest fan of Bronco. I'm very skeptical that he can bring us to the level of national prominence that we want to achieve. That being said, I'm pretty sure that right now there isn't a single person who wants the BYU job and everything that comes with it, who could do better.

There is not one that would come close. Learn to appreciate what you have. He could be elsewhere - and will probably hang it up earlier than most fans will want and for those counting the days - there were a number of similar fans with a countdown on Lavell - and that got them Crowton, a ton of hype, a lot of embarrassment, followed by Bronco who cannot satisfy you either.



The other option was Reynolds. A fine man - but I do not hear the clammor.



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I really love Bronco and what he's done for BYU. But there are some obvious problems with the team that are directly related to coaching. How many times will BYU totally give the game away to Utah before we prepare for that game differently? Last year's debacle should have been enough of a wake-up call to instill a desire to change, shouldn't it? Then we see a mini version of last year's game on Saturday night, with a repeat of a bad snap for a Ute touchdown even. It's really shocking to me. I don't want Bronco to go, either. I love the defense. But something has to change.

I am fully invested in Bronco as a coach. He is passionate and the players love him. He has to be both coach and mission president. I am even OK with Doman--I think he will get better.



I am not OK with the O line, and I am not OK with the job Weber has done as a coach. If our linemen are in shape like we were told then what is up with them--I think they need better coaching. False starts are a factor of training and discipline, and that is on coach Weber.

Gunk wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFsTs9QhQNU&feature=youtu.be&a

Haha, love how the stupid Ute starts backing away the moment Bronco turns towards him. Then when Bronco moves along the dumb Ute takes a step forward.

I'd have loved to see Bronco get a hold of this guy. There are few, if any, times I could imagine Bronco losing his composure, bu this is one time I think it could have happened and I would have paid money to see.