Why we shouldn't call for new coaches

I'm not a fan of calling for coaches to be fired. Bronco has won enough games and been here long enough that it wouldn't be weird if he left at the end of the season, but if we fired Anae again at the end of the season and hired someone new, we'd have our third OC and third offensive system in three years. That type of discontinuity is bad for the football program in general.



A head coach has an idea of the identity he wants for his team with its offensive and defensive philosophies, which determines who he will hire as OC and DC. The coordinators hire position coaches, and then the way the coaching staff interacts with the players sets the foundation for the team culture. Returning players help instill the culture and values on incoming freshmen and transfers. It can be five years before a coach at BYU shows their true potential, when their first recruiting classes become juniors and seniors after their missions.



Things rarely change on a dime. Maybe we look at Jaime Hill getting fired and the defense immediately tightening up and think that this is normal, but that was quite exceptional.



If we fire Anae midseason, then we will undoubtedly end up with a losing season. We'd have to bring in another coach--hardly anyone is still available and none of them are good because the good ones got picked up by the start of season. The new OC would have to decide whether to keep Anae's playbook and tweak it a bit even though he might not understand it as intimately as Anae, or implement something new. If we implement something new, then we're months behind every other team because they've been learning the same scheme since Spring ball.



I think it could hurt recruiting if we keep changing things every season. If I were a sought after recruit with multiple offers, I doubt I'd commit to a first year OC or position coach at a school where the average tenure is less than two years.

brpajense wrote:
I'm not a fan of calling for coaches to be fired. Bronco has won enough games and been here long enough that it wouldn't be weird if he left at the end of the season, but if we fired Anae again at the end of the season and hired someone new, we'd have our third OC and third offensive system in three years. That type of discontinuity is bad for the football program in general.



A head coach has an idea of the identity he wants for his team with its offensive and defensive philosophies, which determines who he will hire as OC and DC. The coordinators hire position coaches, and then the way the coaching staff interacts with the players sets the foundation for the team culture. Returning players help instill the culture and values on incoming freshmen and transfers. It can be five years before a coach at BYU shows their true potential, when their first recruiting classes become juniors and seniors after their missions.



Things rarely change on a dime. Maybe we look at Jaime Hill getting fired and the defense immediately tightening up and think that this is normal, but that was quite exceptional.



If we fire Anae midseason, then we will undoubtedly end up with a losing season. We'd have to bring in another coach--hardly anyone is still available and none of them are good because the good ones got picked up by the start of season. The new OC would have to decide whether to keep Anae's playbook and tweak it a bit even though he might not understand it as intimately as Anae, or implement something new. If we implement something new, then we're months behind every other team because they've been learning the same scheme since Spring ball.



I think it could hurt recruiting if we keep changing things every season. If I were a sought after recruit with multiple offers, I doubt I'd commit to a first year OC or position coach at a school where the average tenure is less than two years.

No offense (and we don't have an offense) but this is dumb. Fire Anae, or don't fire Anae we will likely end up with a losing season. We are now 9 years into the Bronco experience and it is not the success that many want or even say it is. I don't think firing Anae right now is a good idea. The stupid idea came when Bronco hired him earlier this year. Stupid is as stupid does.



As long as this coaching staff is in place we will continue to get the same results. This program is a mess right now but people don't want to see it.



We just lost to team, for the 4th year in a row, that will be lucky to have a winning season.

BRP is spot on. This program needs continuity and a schedule like those feasted on in the past.



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I think we need to give go fast, go hard time to work. The scheme is good and it will work once we can actually make short yardage plays consistently through the passing game. Ammon Olsen and Taysom in the backfield.

Ammon Olsen and Taysom in the backfield.[/quote]



I'll vote for that.



I do think that Taysom needs to throw much more in practice if he's going to stay at QB. The receivers need to run routes and catch more as well.

nuk13 wrote:

Ammon Olsen and Taysom in the backfield.

I'll vote for that.



I do think that Taysom needs to throw much more in practice if he's going to stay at QB. The receivers need to run routes and catch more as well.

I think what he needs to do is throw with heavy pressure coming at him. You watch him throw in warmups and he's consistent and right on. But when pressure comes his foot work falls apart and he ends up muscling his throws causing accuracy to plummet.

northerncougar wrote:



We are now 9 years into the Bronco experience and it is not the success that many want or even say it is. I

Before the Utah game Bronco's record was compared to Lavell's. Bronco was 1 game under Lavell. So with the Utah loss Bronco is 2 games under what lavell accomplished in the same period of time. Bronco has played an overall tougher slate of games too.

If Bronco coaches as long as Lavell did then he would be right under a hall a fame coach, and your saying that this is not what many want? The winning % is great under BM. The Bowl winning % is the best ever.

Some fans have selective memory over Byu's past. i wonder what the messages boards would look like if they were around when BYU lost to UTEP. I'm guessing a lot of "fire chow" "Lavell has got to go" .

The GFGH offense as Anae put it preseason "it will be a marathon" Maybe patience is too much to ask for in college football.

hawkwing wrote:
I think we need to give go fast, go hard time to work. The scheme is good and it will work once we can actually make short yardage plays consistently through the passing game. Ammon Olsen and Taysom in the backfield.

The scheme sucks, because the QB running it can;t pass. But also because the OC calling the plays does not know how to properly utilize Hill's skills. How about some short passes? Slants, quick outs, WR screens, skinny posts, crosses? Or a pass to a TE or RB in the flat? How many times do we have to watch Hill throw it 15 yards down the field, to the outside of the field, often on the run, to see he can not consistently make those throws? Because he can't. HE is way too wild.



Anae is not putting Hill in a position to succeed in the passing game right now.

stgeorgefan wrote:

We are now 9 years into the Bronco experience and it is not the success that many want or even say it is. I

Before the Utah game Bronco's record was compared to Lavell's. Bronco was 1 game under Lavell. So with the Utah loss Bronco is 2 games under what lavell accomplished in the same period of time. Bronco has played an overall tougher slate of games too.

If Bronco coaches as long as Lavell did then he would be right under a hall a fame coach, and your saying that this is not what many want? The winning % is great under BM. The Bowl winning % is the best ever.

Some fans have selective memory over Byu's past. i wonder what the messages boards would look like if they were around when BYU lost to UTEP. I'm guessing a lot of "fire chow" "Lavell has got to go" .

The GFGH offense as Anae put it preseason "it will be a marathon" Maybe patience is too much to ask for in college football.

I'm 31. I've had season tickets to the games since 1990. My memories of Lavell are Ty Detmer and Steve Sarkesian (SP?) and then mostly average. Then I remember Crowton and now Bronco. Bronco can be really frustrating and Anae trying to run up the middle 2 out of 3 plays over and over and over again can be really really really frustrating.



However, BYU under Bronco has been as good or better than what I can remember except for 1996 which 2006/2007 weren't far off. I think firing Bronco would likely result in a long long rebuilding process. Look at Utah's basketball team.

hawkwing wrote:
I think we need to give go fast, go hard time to work. The scheme is good and it will work once we can actually make short yardage plays consistently through the passing game. Ammon Olsen and Taysom in the backfield.

I'm with Hawk. The problem isn't the scheme. It's the QB. THill simply can't throw the ball efficeintly. What's unknown right now is if there is another QB on the roster who can.



GFGH can only work if you're moving the ball. THill's passing baility doesn't allow BYU to do that consistently - so the whole impoteus to run GFGH, which is to tire out your opponent's defense doesn't work. Not stringing enough plays together on multiple consecutive drives won't tire out the defense.



It's time for a QB change. I'll have numbers to back this up later today/week.

The scheme, and playcalling WITHIN the scheme are two different things.



Although GFGH aka the qb read option is a great offensive system, it is in the hands of an OC that can't call plays for it and doesn't judge his offensive talent well, a qb who makes terrible reads if the plays are even there, and a head coach that fails to hold players accountable once they get past his sniff test.



It might not be the wrong scheme, but it is certainly wrongly implemented. Unless we want to become Air Force with chubby, out of shape, lineman that don't know how to zone read.

stgeorgefan wrote:

We are now 9 years into the Bronco experience and it is not the success that many want or even say it is. I

Before the Utah game Bronco's record was compared to Lavell's. Bronco was 1 game under Lavell. So with the Utah loss Bronco is 2 games under what lavell accomplished in the same period of time. Bronco has played an overall tougher slate of games too.

If Bronco coaches as long as Lavell did then he would be right under a hall a fame coach, and your saying that this is not what many want? The winning % is great under BM. The Bowl winning % is the best ever.

Some fans have selective memory over Byu's past. i wonder what the messages boards would look like if they were around when BYU lost to UTEP. I'm guessing a lot of "fire chow" "Lavell has got to go" .

The GFGH offense as Anae put it preseason "it will be a marathon" Maybe patience is too much to ask for in college football.

You're missing the big picture. The comparison isn't Lavell. He took a program that was a disaster and built it into something really good. Crowton worked really hard to destroy it but didn't. Bronco has, at best kept the status quo. That isn't good enough.



Lavell's worst years against Utah were the last 9. He was 4-5 against the Utes. Everyone with any knowledge of BYU in that time will tell you that the program was in decline at the end of Lavell's tenure. Bronco is 3-6 against Utah teams that were average at best, 2008 not withstanding.



The Bronco experience has failed because he doesn't know how to hire an OC. He rehired Anae thinking that somehow Anae was the answer. I don't know what question he was asking but it must have been a really, really bad one. Our OC's since 2005 have been a mess. That is on Bronco.



Lawboy has said very well today that Anae isn't calling plays to take advantage of the offensive players strengths. I agree. But I don't believe that Anae will change. He is stubborn and has shown since he got back that he is the same as before.



As long as Bronco keeps making terrible hires for an OC, the Bronco experience will continue to be a failure. I hope he changes that but I don't believe he will.

Lawboy wrote:

I think we need to give go fast, go hard time to work. The scheme is good and it will work once we can actually make short yardage plays consistently through the passing game. Ammon Olsen and Taysom in the backfield.

The scheme sucks, because the QB running it can;t pass. But also because the OC calling the plays does not know how to properly utilize Hill's skills. How about some short passes? Slants, quick outs, WR screens, skinny posts, crosses? Or a pass to a TE or RB in the flat? How many times do we have to watch Hill throw it 15 yards down the field, to the outside of the field, often on the run, to see he can not consistently make those throws? Because he can't. HE is way too wild.



Anae is not putting Hill in a position to succeed in the passing game right now.

Lawboy. You are right about Hill being wild which is why you are wrong about scheme and playcalling. That short pass to the right flat hitting the back in stride worked really well for Utah - because Travis Wilson is a legit passer and running threat.



Now - if you could humor me a bit, describe the passing play that resulted in the pick that cost us the UVA game and see if you can guess why Anae might be hesitant to call it again when the game is on the line. BAM. Hill is throwing wild. Another one of those nearly got picked vs Utah. Utah plays tight to the line. BYU defenders play soft off it. Further explaining why it was there for the Utes but not for the cougs. The deep pass was there for BYU. Hill kept throwing it 10 yards over their heads and out of the end zone or out of bounds. Tough to keep calling that one too.



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BlueIsBetter wrote:
The scheme, and playcalling WITHIN the scheme are two different things.



Although GFGH aka the qb read option is a great offensive system, it is in the hands of an OC that can't call plays for it and doesn't judge his offensive talent well, a qb who makes terrible reads if the plays are even there, and a head coach that fails to hold players accountable once they get past his sniff test.



It might not be the wrong scheme, but it is certainly wrongly implemented. Unless we want to become Air Force with chubby, out of shape, lineman that don't know how to zone read.

I don't think GFGH has to be read option. It's only read option because THill can't throw. I think it can be effective as a pass-first scheme as well.



But however you run it, there must be an efficient QB at the helm or it is doomed to fail.

SpiffCoug wrote:

The scheme, and playcalling WITHIN the scheme are two different things.



Although GFGH aka the qb read option is a great offensive system, it is in the hands of an OC that can't call plays for it and doesn't judge his offensive talent well, a qb who makes terrible reads if the plays are even there, and a head coach that fails to hold players accountable once they get past his sniff test.



It might not be the wrong scheme, but it is certainly wrongly implemented. Unless we want to become Air Force with chubby, out of shape, lineman that don't know how to zone read.

I don't think GFGH has to be read option. It's only read option because THill can't throw. I think it can be effective as a pass-first scheme as well.



But however you run it, there must be an efficient QB at the helm or it is doomed to fail.

Good point. It worked with Max Hall during his junior and senior year, but he was the one calling the plays, not Anae. Especially his Sr year. Also, GFGH should have 3 gears. There is no reason to snap the ball with more than 8 seconds on the clock in certain situations, like 3rd and 11 in the third quarter, or in the red zone (unlessyou have them reeling, or just made a big play). Linebackers and DBs will give away coverages if you wait long enough on some plays.



The Oregon GFGH has 3 speeds:

- Red light: read the defense, get set, snap late in the playclock



- Yellow light: (play controlled, go fast to the line, snap depending on how your qb reads the defense and/or looks to the side for the next playcall.)



- Green light: essentially what our GFGH is (but they actually execute it instead of chicken-without-a-head-mode.

How long do stay on a sinking ship?



Heard a story a while ago from a friend of mine that I always like to keep in mind. He's a psychologist and was treating someone with some gambling issues. His patient once had a "feeling" that a slot machine was due for a big payout so kept plunking in quarters. At about 2 am a janitor for the casino came over to my friend's patient and told him that the machine was broken, but the casino didn't want to fix it. It wasn't going to produce a payout. The janitor just couldn't bare to watch this guy waste his money any longer. So, what does my friend's patient do, he thanks the janitor, turns around, and continues plunking in quarters, convinced if he just held out longer the machine would produce. The man blew his entire savings.



Now, there's definitely a balance between being too quick to pull the trigger and waiting too long. But, we're dealing with known commodities here. We know what an Anae offense looks like, whether it's at a faster pace or not. We've invested 4 years into lackluster QB play. Do we keep putting quarters in Hill or Anae's system? Will they ever produce? Or, do we move on? Tough questions, and at the very least I hope they are being mulled over by the appropriate people.



What I don't think we do is trade a known for an unkown, like we did with Doman.

You mean with



Doman, our current RB, QB, and OL coach?



Or an up and comer like Crowton was supposed to be.



It is called pay scale. Unless BYU doubles or triples the Pay you better hope someone like Bronco is willing to keep looking at it as a calling of sorts,



BYU will not raise the pay scale. Professors and staff make the same wage sacrifice to be here.



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Gunk wrote:
How long do stay on a sinking ship?



Heard a story a while ago from a friend of mine that I always like to keep in mind. He's a psychologist and was treating someone with some gambling issues. His patient once had a "feeling" that a slot machine was due for a big payout so kept plunking in quarters. At about 2 am a janitor for the casino came over to my friend's patient and told him that the machine was broken, but the casino didn't want to fix it. It wasn't going to produce a payout. The janitor just couldn't bare to watch this guy waste his money any longer. So, what does my friend's patient do, he thanks the janitor, turns around, and continues plunking in quarters, convinced if he just held out longer the machine would produce. The man blew his entire savings.



Now, there's definitely a balance between being too quick to pull the trigger and waiting too long. But, we're dealing with known commodities here. We know what an Anae offense looks like, whether it's at a faster pace or not. We've invested 4 years into lackluster QB play. Do we keep putting quarters in Hill or Anae's system? Will they ever produce? Or, do we move on? Tough questions, and at the very least I hope they are being mulled over by the appropriate people.



What I don't think we do is trade a known for an unkown, like we did with Doman.

The problem is, too many BYU fans (including on this forum) think the ship isn't sinking. Or that it can be salvaged. They're like those rich folk on the Titanic who kept sipping tea and listening to the band while they should have been getting in the lifeboats.

My opinion is that three games isn't enough to make a judgement on GFGH. But it is enough to make one on THill.



I'd give him one half. If he can't throw the ball efficiently you have to bench him. I'd settle at this point with just significant improvement on this front - like to say 110 PER.

SpiffCoug wrote:
My opinion is that three games isn't enough to make a judgement on GFGH. But it is enough to make one on THill.



I'd give him one half. If he can't throw the ball efficiently you have to bench him. I'd settle at this point with just significant improvement on this front - like to say 110 PER.

Middle Tennessee is actually a good team but we should be able to do what we want against them. I agree. Give Taysom the half to figure it out and then let's see what Olsen has.