What's Your Alternative to GFGH?

SpiffCoug wrote:

SpiffCoug wrote:
I didn't say he sucked. I said he stunk against SDSU and he did. His play wasn't "middlin'" it was poor. His PER was 94.04. He threw 2 INTs. If his concussion was that severe then he shouldn't have been playing. He chose to continue to play so he gets judged on his performance.

Spiff, of all people I can't believe YOU are saying Munns should have played instead of a concussed Lark, because that was the only option left on the bench with Nelson and Hill unavailable. I'd take what we got out of Lark against SDSU any day of the week in lieu of giving Munns the reins.

Wasn't calling for Munns either. By that point, BYU was stuck. Stick w/ a poor playing, concussed Lark. Or a broken Riley. Munns wasn't ready either. BYU had no good QB options at that point of the season.



BYU lucked into a win with the way the QB played that day. I don't think Munns could have won that game either. Although, maybe the best game plan was hope for a turnover and hand the ball off. Munns certainly could have done that.

Let's reset a bit, because I sense you're back-pedaling a bit to try and take back something you said off-the-cuff. Someone said Lark was the best passing QB we had last season, and you replied:

Lark stunk. It took SDSU one game of film to completely shut him down.

You weren't limiting the "Lark stunk" to the SDSU game--you stated he sucked in general and used the SDSU game was proof of the overall stink. "Look! SDSU shut him down with only one game on film--that's how bad he stunk!"



His poor performance against SDSU was not evidence of stink or SDSU's ability to break him down on film, he stunk because he was playing through a concussion, and he had to play through that concussion because the only other option for the game was Franken-Munns. It wasn't because SDSU figured him out and he stunk in general, it was because limited or not, he was the only option.

Let's be honest, though: Lark wasn't a great QB. We didn't have some world-beater sitting on our bench, just a ho-hum backup QB. Would he have been better to have in than near-death Riley, of course, but some people acted like we had had Aaron Rodgers sitting on the bench because of a decent game vs NMSU.

Does anyone else think that our passing game is to difficult for TH right now?

I haven't seen a progression throughout the games to get TH in a groove. ( start out with easy throws to build confidence)

The deeper routes needing time for pass protection seem to be the bigger problem here.

Short 3 step throws or screens could/would negate our O-lines in-ability.



Anae seems to prefer straight forward "our will vs your" instead of out smarting your D. He has ran "vanilla" offenses that work when our guys are bigger, stronger and more physical. But we struggle when when the opposite happens. I'd also mention that if the defense knows what your going to do then they have a #'s advantage that negates our will and strength. It doesn't matter how hard our guys play if the other team brings more guys to the fight ala stacking the box etc.

I'm not opposed to the principle itself. I think it's a good idea and if executed appropriately gives us an edge.



The problem I have is the play calling and inability to move the ball. Seems so much focus has been made on Go Fast Go Hard, that focus on actually getting yards has been lost.



Just going faster and harder doesn't get you yards. You still have to call the right plays and - for lack of a better word - execute the plays. Running on 1st and 2nd down 75% of the time is poor play calling. It's so predictable it doesn't matter how fast your going and the end result is our offense is off the field in record time.

snoscythe wrote:

snoscythe wrote:

I didn't say he sucked. I said he stunk against SDSU and he did. His play wasn't "middlin'" it was poor. His PER was 94.04. He threw 2 INTs. If his concussion was that severe then he shouldn't have been playing. He chose to continue to play so he gets judged on his performance.

Spiff, of all people I can't believe YOU are saying Munns should have played instead of a concussed Lark, because that was the only option left on the bench with Nelson and Hill unavailable. I'd take what we got out of Lark against SDSU any day of the week in lieu of giving Munns the reins.

Wasn't calling for Munns either. By that point, BYU was stuck. Stick w/ a poor playing, concussed Lark. Or a broken Riley. Munns wasn't ready either. BYU had no good QB options at that point of the season.



BYU lucked into a win with the way the QB played that day. I don't think Munns could have won that game either. Although, maybe the best game plan was hope for a turnover and hand the ball off. Munns certainly could have done that.

Let's reset a bit, because I sense you're back-pedaling a bit to try and take back something you said off-the-cuff. Someone said Lark was the best passing QB we had last season, and you replied:

Lark stunk. It took SDSU one game of film to completely shut him down.

You weren't limiting the "Lark stunk" to the SDSU game--you stated he sucked in general and used the SDSU game was proof of the overall stink. "Look! SDSU shut him down with only one game on film--that's how bad he stunk!"



His poor performance against SDSU was not evidence of stink or SDSU's ability to break him down on film, he stunk because he was playing through a concussion, and he had to play through that concussion because the only other option for the game was Franken-Munns. It wasn't because SDSU figured him out and he stunk in general, it was because limited or not, he was the only option.

I can concede the point.



Lark was our best passing QB. I think had he been given the reps that went to two other QBs the previous years, BYU would have been better served in the long run. I think had they invested time in Lark BYU would have won more games in each of the last three years. Lark could have been the guy to restabilize the QB position and get BYU out of the plague that is starting QBs WAY too early in their careers.

SpiffCoug wrote:
I think had he been given the reps that went to two other QBs the previous years, BYU would have been better served in the long run. I think had they invested time in Lark BYU would have won more games in each of the last three years. Lark could have been the guy to restabilize the QB position and get BYU out of the plague that is starting QBs WAY too early in their careers.

Absolutely agreed. Unfortunately, I think the soonest BYU can return to an optimized schedule for QB development will be 2016 when Mangum should be the heir apparent with 2 years of understudy under his belt. Until that point, we are stuck with development in game or a carousel of underdeveloped QBs who may or may not be better than the guy underperforming in front of them.



Anyone who ever thought the Doman hire was smart need only look at the current state of our QB and OL depth charts to realize Doman was absolutely in over his head and the program will be unburdening itself from the Doman Era for the next few years.

I'll admit I haven't yet read through this thread, so forgive me if I'm redundant. Here are a few thoughts I've been ruminating on



1. GFGH is an approach. Of going a) fast, and b) hard. It's not an offense; it's not a scheme. It's an approach to a scheme or an offense. It's useful to separate those two; I'm not sure some of the coaches or fans appreciate the distinction.



2. GFGH has an ally in the field of statistics. I'm not talking about "regression toward the mean" as Nate Miekle pointed out. He got the theory basically right but he got the conclusion totally wrong. What Nate was trying to say was that if you have enough trials (think flips of the coin) then the observed average will converge upon (as a probability limit) the "true" average. Nate then concluded with something like "BYU hasn't been that great on average, so don't expect GFGH to work terribly well."



Where Nate missed was that a football game is won based on the number of "successes" not on the probability of any given success and not on the "average" success. In other words, you win based on points, not average points per play. So, if the likelihood of success (points) of any given trial (play) is low, combat that by having a whole lot of trials. If hitting on a big play is a low probability event, the more times you try, the more likely it is that one of those trials is going to hit.



Of course, that assumes that the probability of success is independent from the number of trials. Or, in other words, that going fast doesn't affect how effective any particular play is. Robert Anae has stated that he believes that "state independence" to be true. If so, then there is real appeal to the GF part of GFGH. If not....

I arrived a little late to the party, so some of what I would say has been said. I echo the comments below and would have said the same thing. The one thing that I would say besides the point made below is that Anae seems to lose himself in the gimmicky, flashy, stuff. Which would be fine, flash is fine. Oregon, Texas aTm, Baylor, and co are doing well with flashy offenses. But what gets me is that he has flash but no substance.



Good offenses don't play to their strengths, they play away from their weaknesses (towards their strengths). What is our weakest position, and I have been consistent in saying so for the last 3-4 years since Heaps (welcome on board to the rest of you)? THE OFFENSIVE LINE. The second worst group is the WR unit, (although they did improve with Cahoon last year to become a productive group. One other reason Anae should be under fire, he let go of two guys that were doing a really good job: Cahoon, and DuPaix.) After that it is the QB, followed only by the TE, whom BYU seems to have forgotten entirely about. I don't blame the TEs for disappearing, I blame the playcalling. Mahina and Wilson are good players.



SO with this said, what position group on your offense is going to be the most tired running a GFGH offense and only substituting once or twice on a 20 play drive? The offensive line. You know, those kids that are getting beat straight up on a 4 man rush consistently? Well, yeah let's just take those unskilled kids and then make them tired! See what happens! Genius, right?



**If you only have 3 offensive lineman even worth their weight (pun intended) knowing how to block correctly without penalties, pick up blitzes, etc, it would seem that playing them until they collapse doesn't seem to be the way to go. We don't have a depth of talented offensive lineman. We need to be substituting MORE lineman into the game to keep the others fresh and get them game experience, not use less lineman for the entire game.



If a player at his best isn't good enough to get the job done, then that same player at half speed because of fatigue is half as good as not good enough. It's basic math. Anae is gimmicky, and garbage. We will get pummeled by any team over .500 on offense.



What would I do differently? Grill my lineman in Spring training so that they know every position (but Center, that should be static). In games, regularly rotate lineman in two people at a time to keep them fresh the entire game. Every other first down, at least. I would run a PLETHORA (word bonus) of screens, shuttle passes, and different rb reads, playaction, misdirection, all with the intent of getting the defensive line and linebackers to take some pressure off the line, and go into more of a zone read.

Stuckinbig10country:

I like GFGH, but I think BYU is doing it wrong. Their focus is getting as many plays in as possible, and that's not what makes the offense successful. Getting to the line quickly, not allowing substitutions, making the proper reads, then calling the play are what's important.



If you watch Oregon, they only get 75 to 85 plays a game. It's because they actually slow down to make sure the right play is called, instead of just going with the play called at the beginning.



My thought is any offense that gives Anae total control of every play ran is going to be a failed offense. He was only successful with QBs that changed plays consistently.

Pjmuli:

The reason why I don't like GFGH at the moment is because I believe it will wear down the defense as the season carries on. Would love to be proven wrong...but if we are going to have three and outs, GFGH seems like defensive suicide.