Special Teams and Turn Over Margin

Like a lot of you, I have been pondering the state of the BYU football team as of late. It occured to me, that many of our losses to Utah, and close losses to other programs (such as Boise State and Virginia) could have been prevented by excellent Special Teams play together with our great defenses...in other words, Beamer ball. Now, I am just hypothesizing, but I think part of the issue is that there really isn't a bona fide special teams coach. Sure, we rely on starters to play those special teams positions, but who is coaching them, and how much emphasis is placed on it. I think with more emphasis on special teams, we win the UVA game and Boise State game--we block for the 2 pt. conversion against Boise State, and we don't get the blocked punt against UVA. We also don't get the extra point blocked against Utah last year and win that game.



I just get the impression that the emphasis is on defense and offense, but not so much on special teams, where special teams is often the difference in a game. Bronco doesn't play blowout ball, so we should be extra tight on special teams.



The other area we seem to lack year after year is turnover margin. We give up too many turnovers, and aside from KVN, we don't force enough turnovers. Even though we had a top 5 defense, we were not in the top 50 in turnover margin (Oregon, LSU, Alabama were all in the Top 10...shoot even Notre Dame and Utah were in the top 50).



Like Special Teams, I don't think we emphasize forcing turnovers enough. If we cannot rely on our offense, which it is becoming painfully clear that we can't, we need to increase our turnover margin, play great defense, and play lights out special teams. That will be the new formula for success at BYU. It won't be what we are used to, but until the next Ty Detmer and Norm Chow come along, I think it is what we will need to get to the next level. Kudos to Bronco for coaching an elite level defense.

The problem is that BYU is now playing a schedule that doesn't guarantee 6-7 automatic wins every season... they're playing higher caliber schools with talent equal or superior to its own with better coaching as opposed to beating up on the UNLV's and Wyoming's every year. Going back to 2005, Bronco Mendenhall is now 14-22 vs. teams that aren't UNLV, Wyoming, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado State, San Diego State and division I-AA.

Wolfman wrote:
The problem is that BYU is now playing a schedule that doesn't guarantee 6-7 automatic wins every season... they're playing higher caliber schools with talent equal or superior to its own with better coaching as opposed to beating up on the UNLV's and Wyoming's every year. Going back to 2005, Bronco Mendenhall is now 14-22 vs. teams that aren't UNLV, Wyoming, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado State, San Diego State and division I-AA.

True and I prefer it this way. One day we'll break through.

Wolfman wrote:
The problem is that BYU is now playing a schedule that doesn't guarantee 6-7 automatic wins every season... they're playing higher caliber schools with talent equal or superior to its own with better coaching as opposed to beating up on the UNLV's and Wyoming's every year. Going back to 2005, Bronco Mendenhall is now 14-22 vs. teams that aren't UNLV, Wyoming, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado State, San Diego State and division I-AA.

This is why no one takes your opinions seriously. Because they're flat out WRONG. You're positions are not founded on facts.



Bronco's record is not 14-22 against other teams. Bronco has coached 61 games against teams that aren't "UNLV, Wyoming, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado St, San Diego St and FCS teams" (D1-AA hasn't existed for four season, might want to get with the times). 61 is much more than 36 games. And he is 34-27 against those teams. He is 40-2 against the teams you did mention.



Don't just make stuff up and you'll be much more respected on this board.

Cougarfan87 wrote:

I just get the impression that the emphasis is on defense and offense, but not so much on special teams

Bronco makes the starters (best players) play special teams. TO me that shows some commitment to ST.

I do think though that there should be more emphasis placed on schemes. Utah not only beat us last year with special teams, but they beat USU this year with special teams.

The Utes offense has been poor for a handful of years and their defense and special teams has played a big part of them winning games... :sick:



If our offense is going to sputter while the execution catches up I'd like for the team to try and win the other 2 phases of the game.

SpiffCoug wrote:

The problem is that BYU is now playing a schedule that doesn't guarantee 6-7 automatic wins every season... they're playing higher caliber schools with talent equal or superior to its own with better coaching as opposed to beating up on the UNLV's and Wyoming's every year. Going back to 2005, Bronco Mendenhall is now 14-22 vs. teams that aren't UNLV, Wyoming, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado State, San Diego State and division I-AA.

This is why no one takes your opinions seriously. Because they're flat out WRONG. You're positions are not founded on facts.



Bronco's record is not 14-22 against other teams. Bronco has coached 61 games against teams that aren't "UNLV, Wyoming, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado St, San Diego St and FCS teams" (D1-AA hasn't existed for four season, might want to get with the times). 61 is much more than 36 games. And he is 34-27 against those teams. He is 40-2 against the teams you did mention.



Don't just make stuff up and you'll be much more respected on this board.

I didn't make it up Spiff... it was a record I looked up before the season began - Bronco has coached 8 full seasons with BYU and in those first 6, he coached 72 games, 37 of which were gimmes. In those other 35, he was 14-21.

Also Spiff... who was the one warning about Anae's GFGH offense and BYU lacking the coaching, personnel, players, speed and depth to effectively execute it which was going to hamper the Cougs' offensive output and diminish their chances of beating Virginia? I am not looking for respect... I'm just looking to analyze what I and others who know their college football see and issue forecasts and analysis based on those observations. This GFGH offense is ridiculous and it is puzzling how two coaches getting paid over a million dollars a year combined are trying to run it at BYU when it's obvious it isn't going to work but result in futility offensively. Even KWhit basically said this week that what BYU is trying to do offensively is silly - there are only 7 schools in the nation attempting to run that type of offense right now and only two were successful at it in week 1 (Oregon being one of them). BYU ain't Oregon.

Wolfman wrote:

Wolfman wrote:
The problem is that BYU is now playing a schedule that doesn't guarantee 6-7 automatic wins every season... they're playing higher caliber schools with talent equal or superior to its own with better coaching as opposed to beating up on the UNLV's and Wyoming's every year. Going back to 2005, Bronco Mendenhall is now 14-22 vs. teams that aren't UNLV, Wyoming, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado State, San Diego State and division I-AA.

This is why no one takes your opinions seriously. Because they're flat out WRONG. You're positions are not founded on facts.



Bronco's record is not 14-22 against other teams. Bronco has coached 61 games against teams that aren't "UNLV, Wyoming, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado St, San Diego St and FCS teams" (D1-AA hasn't existed for four season, might want to get with the times). 61 is much more than 36 games. And he is 34-27 against those teams. He is 40-2 against the teams you did mention.



Don't just make stuff up and you'll be much more respected on this board.

I didn't make it up Spiff... it was a record I looked up before the season began - Bronco has coached 8 full seasons with BYU and in those first 6, he coached 72 games, 37 of which were gimmes. In those other 35, he was 14-21.

But that wasn't what you said. You didn't qualify your statement nor limit it to the first six years of his tenure. You said going back to 2005, Bronco is NOW... Even giving you those first six, Bronco only lost 21 games total, one of which was to SDSU - which was in your list of gimmee games. So again your research was poor and your opinion not based on fact.

Not feeding the Voldemort-resurrected Troll.



I agree with the OP on Virginia. Special teams wins us that game. More emphasis on turnovers means we probably put more points on the board as Hadley and Sorensen both saw easy picks slip through their fingers. Over the last 3 years, turnover margin hasn't been a reliable state b/c/o the miserable QB situation and all of the pick-6s that were thrown. But still, the number of defensive takeaways has seemed really low. Glad others thought the same; I was wondering if it was just me.



I don't see it so much on BSU, though. The play called was an offensive play, not a fake or something. Our line got flat out owned on that because BSU wanted it more.

CrimsonCoug wrote:
Not feeding the Voldemort-resurrected Troll.



I agree with the OP on Virginia. Special teams wins us that game. More emphasis on turnovers means we probably put more points on the board as Hadley and Sorensen both saw easy picks slip through their fingers. Over the last 3 years, turnover margin hasn't been a reliable state b/c/o the miserable QB situation and all of the pick-6s that were thrown. But still, the number of defensive takeaways has seemed really low. Glad others thought the same; I was wondering if it was just me.



I don't see it so much on BSU, though. The play called was an offensive play, not a fake or something. Our line got flat out owned on that because BSU wanted it more.

I guess I was considering the 2 point conversion a special teams play, but I can see it as an offensive play as well.

stgeorgefan wrote:

I just get the impression that the emphasis is on defense and offense, but not so much on special teams

Bronco makes the starters (best players) play special teams. TO me that shows some commitment to ST.

I do think though that there should be more emphasis placed on schemes. Utah not only beat us last year with special teams, but they beat USU this year with special teams.

The Utes offense has been poor for a handful of years and their defense and special teams has played a big part of them winning games... :sick:



If our offense is going to sputter while the execution catches up I'd like for the team to try and win the other 2 phases of the game.

I give credit for having starting players in there. But what about the coaching and execution. We never seem that sharp on Special Teams. We rarely fake it. It just seems there are some things we could do to win that phase of the game with more emphasis, which would lead to wins. I think if you win defense and special teams, you can come out the victor in most games, especially as you noted with the Utah games. How many of our rivalry games would have a different outcome if we won the defensive and special teams battles? I can think of two of our most recent losses as examples. Pretty much any close loss can be attributed to the turn over margin or special teams bone-headed mistakes. Those things seem easier to fix, too. I guess I am calling for more of an emphasis like you were stating.

SpiffCoug wrote:

SpiffCoug wrote:

The problem is that BYU is now playing a schedule that doesn't guarantee 6-7 automatic wins every season... they're playing higher caliber schools with talent equal or superior to its own with better coaching as opposed to beating up on the UNLV's and Wyoming's every year. Going back to 2005, Bronco Mendenhall is now 14-22 vs. teams that aren't UNLV, Wyoming, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado State, San Diego State and division I-AA.

This is why no one takes your opinions seriously. Because they're flat out WRONG. You're positions are not founded on facts.



Bronco's record is not 14-22 against other teams. Bronco has coached 61 games against teams that aren't "UNLV, Wyoming, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado St, San Diego St and FCS teams" (D1-AA hasn't existed for four season, might want to get with the times). 61 is much more than 36 games. And he is 34-27 against those teams. He is 40-2 against the teams you did mention.



Don't just make stuff up and you'll be much more respected on this board.

I didn't make it up Spiff... it was a record I looked up before the season began - Bronco has coached 8 full seasons with BYU and in those first 6, he coached 72 games, 37 of which were gimmes. In those other 35, he was 14-21.

But that wasn't what you said. You didn't qualify your statement nor limit it to the first six years of his tenure. You said going back to 2005, Bronco is NOW... Even giving you those first six, Bronco only lost 21 games total, one of which was to SDSU - which was in your list of gimmee games. So again your research was poor and your opinion not based on fact.

Forgive me for not getting it 100% accurate - I'm not about to spend hours digging through every detail of every BYU game and the stats since 2005 - what I posted was more or less a quick run through as opposed to an in-depth analysis. It's obvious that my definition of a quality college football team is different than most here in the forum, primarily because my definition equates to more losses for Bronco.

Turnover margin does have two pieces. BYU committed too many for sure.



And



They hardly created any until Bronco discovered his corners could cover and Ziggy could disrupt. He already knew KVN could disrupt. He changed his approach after about 4 or 5 games and turned the digs loose and created more turnovers as a result. This year, he may need to go conservative again.



And yes ST has had few bright spots over the years. We lost the punter that would have won the UVA game for us due to field position improvement.



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

The new punter did alright. He had several inside of the 20 and could have had another when Hill punted 35 yds into the endzone.

scott715 wrote:
The new punter did alright. He had several inside of the 20 and could have had another when Hill punted 35 yds into the endzone.

He did alright - last year we had incredible.



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

Amazing how much better a team looks when they get some points on the board.

Did dallin leavitt ever come back in the game after he got hurt on the kickoff coverage?

My understanding is no. He got his bell rung. Hope he will be good to go in two weeks.