Reality Bites

The reality is:



1. BYU's offense is a disaster. Williams and Hoffman are very good. The rest of the O is good to absolutely horrific.



2. Our QB situation is a dumpster fire. Riley is the worst starting QB I have seen in 23 years of watching BYU football. How bad must Lark be/feel watching Riley miss so many throws on Saturday. Sad...



3. Our D is good but not great. We are ranked high but that is a function of playing a lot of really poor teams.



4. Our coaching staff are a bunch of clowns. At least that is how it looks from the outside.



I said before the season started that if we lost the 4 big games (Utah, BSU, ND and GT) that this season would be a failure. I didn't include OSU as they didn't look great before the season, but that was sure a fun game. Win or lose on Saturday, this season is a complete failure.



Reality bites...

What is your definition of a successful season? Is everything but a national championship or a BCS game victory a failure? Is a 10 win season a success?



I don't know how you categorize a season as a success or a failure for anyone other than the national champion and maybe each conference champion.



Does it really matter? I think everyone knew that we weren't competing for the national championship. We had the schedule to make noise in the BCS, but even losing one game dropped us out of that.



For me as a fan I'd judge the season as a success or a failure if the games were entertaining and we didn't embarrass ourselves. Has the season been frustrating? Yes. Have I been entertained? Yes. Will I continue watching? Yes.



Can we build on this year for future years? Yes. Our future starting QB received meaningful playing time. Our future starting (current) RB is receiving meaningful playing time and is excelling. Heck, we are even developing the bottom end of our offensive line. Think how good our third string offensive linemen might be next year with all of the playing time they are getting this year...



How's that for glass half-full.

Not bad.

Glass Half empty--and to Answer your question, undefeated and NC is a red herring.

Bronco and Riley diddled away two games because of their special relationship. Those games, even though U is down and BSU is down (but only one loss to date) should have been W's!!!

OSU and ND maybes. It is a sham and waist that we lost those two games to U and BSU.

Our offense is grossly underperforming. And for that, it is a failure. Reality Bites. Living like an ostrich isn't so good either, even if you think it is.

dmcougar wrote:
Not bad.

Glass Half empty--and to Answer your question, undefeated and NC is a red herring.

Bronco and Riley diddled away two games because of their special relationship. Those games, even though U is down and BSU is down (but only one loss to date) should have been W's!!!

OSU and ND maybes. It is a sham and waist that we lost those two games to U and BSU.

Our offense is grossly underperforming. And for that, it is a failure. Reality Bites. Living like an ostrich isn't so good either, even if you think it is.

If losing to U and BSU has ruined your year then maybe it's time to re-evaluate your priorities and figure out why a football game causes such variance in your ability to enjoy life.



Had we won the games against Utah and BSU, what difference would it have made next year? Would we be anymore likely to win the difficult schedule we have ahead of us? What difference does 9-4 or 11-2 make next year or five years from now? If OSU shows you something it is that at the NCAA level you can reload very quickly and go from a terrible team to a top ten team the next year. Maybe all it takes is your QB graduating...

Wickchad84087 wrote:

Not bad.

Glass Half empty--and to Answer your question, undefeated and NC is a red herring.

Bronco and Riley diddled away two games because of their special relationship. Those games, even though U is down and BSU is down (but only one loss to date) should have been W's!!!

OSU and ND maybes. It is a sham and waist that we lost those two games to U and BSU.

Our offense is grossly underperforming. And for that, it is a failure. Reality Bites. Living like an ostrich isn't so good either, even if you think it is.

If losing to U and BSU has ruined your year then maybe it's time to re-evaluate your priorities and figure out why a football game causes such variance in your ability to enjoy life.



Had we won the games against Utah and BSU, what difference would it have made next year? Would we be anymore likely to win the difficult schedule we have ahead of us? What difference does 9-4 or 11-2 make next year or five years from now? If OSU shows you something it is that at the NCAA level you can reload very quickly and go from a terrible team to a top ten team the next year. Maybe all it takes is your QB graduating...

What the heck are you talking about. First it hasn't ruined "my year." Second, this thread and my post is talking about the reality of this year not next. Stick to the point. This year is not based upon the record as much as BYU giving away games they should have won, but for poor decisions by Bronco to play Riley at 65% and believing that gave us our best chance; For putting in Riley because he begged for one more series and he just turned it back over; again; for supporting a -4 PER performance and blowing it off.

BYU has lost 3 games it should have won. Hard to argue otherwise. Only the Oregon State game, to me, was a game we deserved to lose based upon what happened on the field. The other 3 losses were extremely winnable, and frustrating losses, because they are more of hte same with this staff. Been this way, basically, since 2006. We lose 1-2 games per we should not. And I am no inculding he TCU/Utah games in 2008-2010 either. Lost those ones as well.

Uh, Wickchad84087, you need to put the crack pipe down. I'm not sure where you got off track but I'll try to bring you back.



-National Championship? Not sure where that came from, but I don't know of anyone on this board that ever talked about it other than pipe dreams or wishing for the impossible.



-As far as what a successful season is, it is winning the games you should win, not squandering them away with stupid coaching decisions and weird man crushes on the worst starting QB I have ever seen at BYU. At least since Lavell took over.



-Losing to Utah and BSU is inexcusable this year. They are both poor teams and we are one decent QB away from beating them both this year. Think about it: Utah has one FBS win this year. One.



I categorize a successful season as beating your rival when you should, beating a "top 5" team on the road, beating BSU in the best year to do that in a long, long time. The fact that we couldn't do any of those and should have done all of them tells me this season is a bust.



-You can't possibly be serious about our starting QB for next year getting valuable playing time. 1 game. He got injured. For the season.



-I have no idea where you got the thought that it has ruined anyone's year. No one said that. The fact that this season has been a huge disappointment hasn't cause me to lose sleep (accept for maybe the Utah game where it took me a while to get to sleep). Stop making stuff up.

Where would we be at 7-1? Ranked, talked about more by the media. Maybe better tv giving us more money to build the program. Recruits trying to knock our door down to get into the program. Maybe more good teams wanting to play us. Hill being healthy and getting more experience for next year. I think that would be successful for now and into the future.

northerncougar wrote:



I categorize a successful season as ...... beating a "top 5" team on the road...... The fact that we couldn't do any of those and should have done all of them tells me this season is a bust.

You must be a very patient fan if beating top 5 teams on the road is required to having a successful season.

Stirfry wrote:

I categorize a successful season as ...... beating a "top 5" team on the road...... The fact that we couldn't do any of those and should have done all of them tells me this season is a bust.

You must be a very patient fan if beating top 5 teams on the road is required to having a successful season.

You missed the part about them being a "top 5" program and where I said we should have won but blew it.



I have no problem losing to a team that truly is much better than BYU.

scott715 wrote:
Where would we be at 7-1? Ranked, talked about more by the media. Maybe better tv giving us more money to build the program. Recruits trying to knock our door down to get into the program. Maybe more good teams wanting to play us. Hill being healthy and getting more experience for next year. I think that would be successful for now and into the future.

Yes, if we want or consider a what if scenario to help prove the point that reality bites.



BYU would have been top 15 if they had gone 7-0, maybe top 10. We were ranked n front of OSU, iirc, when we entered the poll and would have vaulted up the board as we beat U and BSU. We would have a ton of attention haivng just beaten fellow top 15 team in OSU and in our second year of Indy with the match up of two top ten teams, both religious and Indy--it would have been huge. Gameday would have gone to South Bend, it would have been huge, huge!

And even if we lose, we don't Drop much having lost to the mighty fighting Irish. We stay in the top 15, deservedly or not. And if we won out with only one loss to a ND team that if they had won out (which they probably won't) BYU gets mention for a BCS game and finishes in the top 10. And Riley enters the discussion of the 2nd tier QBs.

As is, BYU barely makes a bowl and Riley finishes 38th among 43 starting BYU QBs and who knows what other collateral damages to coaches and recruits.

So, ya, reality bites hard!!

northerncougar wrote:
The reality is:



1. BYU's offense is a disaster. Williams and Hoffman are very good. The rest of the O is good to absolutely horrific.



2. Our QB situation is a dumpster fire. Riley is the worst starting QB I have seen in 23 years of watching BYU football. How bad must Lark be/feel watching Riley miss so many throws on Saturday. Sad...



3. Our D is good but not great. We are ranked high but that is a function of playing a lot of really poor teams.



4. Our coaching staff are a bunch of clowns. At least that is how it looks from the outside.



I said before the season started that if we lost the 4 big games (Utah, BSU, ND and GT) that this season would be a failure. I didn't include OSU as they didn't look great before the season, but that was sure a fun game. Win or lose on Saturday, this season is a complete failure.



Reality bites...

Excellent post. To think we all dropped our expectations immensely prior to this year...and we are still horribly disappointed. I'm not sure I'm prepared to call for a 7-8 loss season, but next year expectations must drop again since Hill is now an unknown and the D likely won't be as good.



The level of competition has gone up and it's great that the team is used to playing big boys now on the biggest stages (a huge accomplishment and necessary for prominence), but the program is actually heading downhill overall due to coaching and the mismanagement of QB's. BYU now has a boring football program and I don't see this changing anytime soon.