Problem with Bronco's O

I think Bronco is a solid coach. One glaring issue I have with him is his inability to hire talented coaches.



Another is his philosophy on offense.



His take with offense appears to be centered on "execution," or in other words: not making mistakes. Bronco is a stats guy, which is cool but I think he tends to focus a bit too much on a stat or two, letting that focus taint other aspects of the game too much.



Now, I'm not saying ball security isn't a worthy cause, or getting in an extra play or two, etc. However, if the goal is to play mistake free football the natural tendency is to then play conservatively as risky, complicated plays create room for errors.



Basic = Safe/Error Free. Just make less mistakes than your opponent.



Rather than take risks, scheme, or shake things up according to an opponent. The emphasis is not making mistakes. Consequently, the same thing is practiced over and over and over. Wash, rinse and repeat.



Makes more sense to me now why each season Bronco is "pleased" with the progress of the offense. In practice, basic plays are ran and practiced to a “T”. Things look great. No errors are made.



Come game time, though, it's a whole new ball game and that's where we're lacking. Risks need to be taken. New looks given to the opposing defense. Scheming needs to take place. Dare I say, on occasion a complicated plays need to be ran.



But, it doesn't have to be scheme play vs mistake free play. A more complicated, electric offense can be achieved...but that would require more intense practicing; whatever the NCAA lets you get away with. Not abreviated executive-versions.



Playing to not make mistakes kills creativity. Unfortunately, there's not stat for measuring creativity so we'll never see it from a Bronco team.

I'm a tennis player. Playing bad players just keep getting the ball over the net and wait for your opponent to make a mistake wins every time. When you play good players, they can rally and will hit winners on you. You have to hit winners to win and you will hit some out in trying to hit the winners. Can't play conservative against good teams all of the time. You need a couple winners to come out on top.

A proven OC wouldn't hurt the program at this point. The offense has crippled us for 3 seasons now.

Gunk wrote:
I think Bronco is a solid coach. One glaring issue I have with him is his inability to hire talented coaches.



Another is his philosophy on offense.

This first part of the original post sums it up.



Bronco's talent for defense shows in the defense. But, as he has admitted himself, he doesn't really have a mind for offense. So it comes down to who he hires. He needs somebody that is as good on offense as he is on defense.

Here is the underlying defect in our offense--Doman wants to do everything. He wants a traditional pocket-passing game. He wants a between the tackles running game. He wants the triple option. He wants the wildcat. In short, anything anyone else has done well for the last 30 years of college football, Doman wants it in his playbook.



The problem is, the OLine is the foundation of an offensive football team, and you set your foundation based upon what you want to build on it. If you want wildcat and option football, you recruit Rich Rodriguez's slimmer, more athletic linemen. Unfortunately, those guys can't handle bull rushes as well, so when you take that foundation, you can't do 3- or 5- step drops 20+ times a game because they are going to get run over. You're going to need to run bootlegs and move the pocket or else you are going to lose QBs to shoulder and back injuries and linemen to knee/ankle injuries.



If you want to be a pocket-passing team, you're need a stable of corn-fed trench-hogs to buy the time for a lot of 3- and 5- step drops. But these guys (unless you have the cream and the clear) are not going to be fleet enough in the feet to let you run the option or wildcat more than 10 times a game because they simply can't get to the block points fast enough to let you do it effectively outside of the element of surprise.



Doman either thinks he can do what no one else has been able to do before, or he doesn't realize the limited skill-set of an offensive line. You have to choose your identity, and then recruit and train your OLine on that basis. Because Doman is trying everything, he is asking his OLine to do things consistently that they simply cannot by nature of their physiology.



In short, with a lack of identity this bad, you end up with an offense that is a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none and an OLine that can't perform any of its tasks well. You end up with an offense that relies on QBs who can make plays when the called play breaks down, and when you rely on that, it should set off klaxon sirens that something is wrong with your playbook. In the final analysis, I think this playbook may prove to be a worse mis-step than 2QB.

Good points, Sno. I agree some sort of identity needs to take form and it has to be bigger than one player. Football isn't like basketball where an offense can be tweaked to suit a player. Too many moving parts. A system needs to be in place and we don't have one.



That said, this is Bronco's second OC; both of which are pretty vanilla. And given Bronco's emphasis on execution, stats and playing mistake free, you can't help but wonder what sort of stifling effect that has.



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Excellent post Sno. It's time to hire a proven OC. I think it's really that simple. Average QB's can be plugged into a good system but we have no system and the offense is soft.

snoscythe wrote:
In short, with a lack of identity this bad, you end up with an offense that is a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none and an OLine that can't perform any of its tasks well. You end up with an offense that relies on QBs who can make plays when the called play breaks down, and when you rely on that, it should set off klaxon sirens that something is wrong with your playbook. In the final analysis, I think this playbook may prove to be a worse mis-step than 2QB.

Agreed. I think Crowton's offenses suffered from the same problem--probably not a coincidence, right? BYU should adopt the Stanford tough-as-nails, powerful, balanced offense--we already have a similar identity on defense, plus we can recruit players to match that style well.

Mingjai wrote:

In short, with a lack of identity this bad, you end up with an offense that is a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none and an OLine that can't perform any of its tasks well. You end up with an offense that relies on QBs who can make plays when the called play breaks down, and when you rely on that, it should set off klaxon sirens that something is wrong with your playbook. In the final analysis, I think this playbook may prove to be a worse mis-step than 2QB.

Agreed. I think Crowton's offenses suffered from the same problem--probably not a coincidence, right? BYU should adopt the Stanford tough-as-nails, powerful, balanced offense--we already have a similar identity on defense, plus we can recruit players to match that style well.

I would love that. We had a little bit of that mentality during the hall/unga years.



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We've got the players coming in on O; now we just need the right coaches. I wonder if DOman would accept a demotion back to his original position and we could hire a proven O-Coord. The Anae firing was well past due. Hiring an unproven OC was probably a poor decision. I had faith in Doman but he has not done what he promised: an explosive and unpredictable offense. He just needs to watch more BSU!

jacksonman wrote:
We've got the players coming in on O; now we just need the right coaches. I wonder if DOman would accept a demotion back to his original position and we could hire a proven O-Coord. The Anae firing was well past due. Hiring an unproven OC was probably a poor decision. I had faith in Doman but he has not done what he promised: an explosive and unpredictable offense. He just needs to watch more BSU!

Jack

You need to watch more BSU, TCU, and even U! Watch closely - you will notice they have a ton of something we have little of. Look closely at RB and DB and WR in particular. We have some of it. They are loaded with it. So we may, due to personnel differences, need to go at it differently.



Then look at BSU even more closely. Look at the schedule. Actually this does not require close examination - just take a glance. Note that other than the game they already lost, the only other team with much opportunity to put them at risk - is - us.



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And Miss St. on the road.

Cougarbib wrote:

We've got the players coming in on O; now we just need the right coaches. I wonder if DOman would accept a demotion back to his original position and we could hire a proven O-Coord. The Anae firing was well past due. Hiring an unproven OC was probably a poor decision. I had faith in Doman but he has not done what he promised: an explosive and unpredictable offense. He just needs to watch more BSU!

Jack

You need to watch more BSU, TCU, and even U! Watch closely - you will notice they have a ton of something we have little of. Look closely at RB and DB and WR in particular. We have some of it. They are loaded with it. So we may, due to personnel differences, need to go at it differently.



Then look at BSU even more closely. Look at the schedule. Actually this does not require close examination - just take a glance. Note that other than the game they already lost, the only other team with much opportunity to put them at risk - is - us.



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Which is why I think Stanford's balanced, pro-style offense should be BYU's model. Don't get me wrong, Stanford still gets much better athletes than BYU, but I think BYU in terms of recruiting is well suited for a power game. I suppose at the pro level, both Harbaugh-coached teams (Baltimore and San Francisco) would be models of this--a killer defense and a powerful, efficient offense. The teams that most closely approached this were the 2009 and the 1996 teams.



It might take a while for the fan base to get used to the fact that BYU is more about overpowering opponents rather than out-finessing opponents, but as long as the incorporate some old school West Coast Offense with the power run game, the team will succeed and the fans will be happy.



At any rate, I don't ever see BYU getting the type of athletes it would need to play the trendy, read-option, vertical passing offense that have become so popular. Even the horizontal, ball-control spread of Texas Tech had to be greatly adapted to work at BYU.

Yep, new OC and O-line coaches.

Who thinks Peoples will now transfer his commitment to the U of U?