Highlight of my concern about the offense

My concern about the offense is not that the offense is down from Anae. Only the most ardent/supportive/naive of BYU and Ty Detmer fans believed that Detmer would come in and be able to immediately improve upon the offense.



My concern is that our offense is currently ranked 129th overall and 130th in scoring. That's last place. Now there is an argument that we've played some tough teams. That's a valid point to keep in mind, however, it's still too early to say how tough these teams really are. LSU, for example, I don't think is as good as they are currently ranked.



I decided to compare BYU's offensive outing to the "worst" team that the opponent has played. Either an FCS team or the worst recorded among FBS teams. This is what I've found.


offensive_comparison_to_opponents_worst_opponent.PNG

BYU has done worse in all but 2 or 3 categories than FCS schools against the exact same competition. That is terrifying to me.

Those stats suck but I am indifferent to stats. I have said before that I would take Anae's offense back in a second and have been criticized for that but the reason isn't because I believe that Anae's offense would have been more productive against the same competition which I believe it would have. I would take Anae's offense back in a second because Anae's offenses were actually physical. This offense (and our defense) seem to want to shy away from contact which is a surprise to me because last years defense was physical.

I am not indifferent to stats, stats are very important to me. You can't find stats of an offensive output like this unless you go back to the 1950s, that's concerning to me and should be to every BYU fan.

I don't disagree with the stats, I just believe if BYU football was bringing the physicality to the other team instead of shying away from it, those stats would be different. Now the real question to me is, is "pillows and feathers" the reason BYU football has lost its physicality.

Hard to sugar coast those stats.



I am anxious to see how we perform at Utah St. this weekend. If the offense doesn't score at least 20 points, it is going to be a long year and I don't see us reaching a bowl.

Bad is one thing. Excrutiatingly awful is something else entirely. BYU's offense needs to improve by leaps and bounds to simply become bad.

Wow, I feel like everyone who has watched at all this year feels like the offense has underperformed... but when you see it side by side like that it really hurts.



Just curious what those who have more familiarity with the subject than I do think, but is it Detmer's inexperience? A lack of talent? The players don't understand the plays? What does everyone else think? I don't even qualify as an armchair quarterback, so thats why I'm asking.

Basically, Detmer copied much of Anae's offense last year, and tried to switch to his own scheme this year. Seems to be the same with Tuiaki, honestly.

Talk to me in 6 weeks when we are playing the easier part of our schedule. If we are putting up in the teens against SJSU with our starting quarterback, then we have cause for concern.



Right now we are playing defenses that are so much better than what we face in a single year, back to back to back.



Even that "bad FCS team", who came within a field goal of Oregon State (Pac-12!!! Yeah baby!) was pretty good. They would probably be in the middle of the MWC.



Give it time. Find a hobby to keep you busy for the next 4 or 5 weeks, and enjoy watching us go bowling this year. Next year things will be monumentally better with our incoming classes and JC transfers, and in 2 years we will have a very good ball control offense, to match up with our very good defense (a defense which was obviously the priority coming in.)

lawngnome wrote:

Wow, I feel like everyone who has watched at all this year feels like the offense has underperformed... but when you see it side by side like that it really hurts.



Just curious what those who have more familiarity with the subject than I do think, but is it Detmer's inexperience? A lack of talent? The players don't understand the plays? What does everyone else think? I don't even qualify as an armchair quarterback, so thats why I'm asking.

We don't have the right horses. Our offensive lineman can't run block, and are getting beat play after play on straight four man rushes.



You can't run a pro offense if you can't run. You completely maim the playaction if defenses don't respect your running ability and play a man with zone on top.

My concern is when the offense is doing something they are having success with, they then stop doing it. For example both in the Utah and Wisconsin games, they were have good success with the no huddle, but during the Wisconsin game when BYU got into the blue zone they stopped the no huddle and went to the huddled which killed the momentum they had.

Brayden Green wrote:

Even that "bad FCS team", who came within a field goal of Oregon State (Pac-12!!! Yeah baby!) was pretty good. They would probably be in the middle of the MWC.

Oregon State would probably be in the middle to bottom of the MWC. They been blown out by Colorado State, Minnesota, and Washington State. Portland State is their only victory.



After losing close to BYU and Oregon State, Portland State went on to lose to mighty UC Davis 37-14.



There is still a lot of football to be played, but so far I have seen little to give me hope for this season on offense. Hopefully BYU pulls it together this week.

Brayden Green wrote:

We don't have the right horses. Our offensive lineman can't run block, and are getting beat play after play on straight four man rushes.



You can't run a pro offense if you can't run. You completely maim the playaction if defenses don't respect your running ability and play a man with zone on top.

Kalani has had 2 recruiting classes at BYU. He has been touted as a recruiting guru. Why then are the players on the team getting worse, instead of better? And does he not recruit linemen?

Mars wrote:

We don't have the right horses. Our offensive lineman can't run block, and are getting beat play after play on straight four man rushes.



You can't run a pro offense if you can't run. You completely maim the playaction if defenses don't respect your running ability and play a man with zone on top.

Kalani has had 2 recruiting classes at BYU. He has been touted as a recruiting guru. Why then are the players on the team getting worse, instead of better? And does he not recruit linemen?

I wanna say I agree, but has he really had 2 full recruiting classes? For the first one wasn't he a brand new coach and those were recruits already offered by Bronco?

Depends on your definition. Bronco left before the bowl game, so Kalani had about 2 months before the kids signed with him.

byufan4ever wrote:

Brayden Green wrote:

We don't have the right horses. Our offensive lineman can't run block, and are getting beat play after play on straight four man rushes.



You can't run a pro offense if you can't run. You completely maim the playaction if defenses don't respect your running ability and play a man with zone on top.

Kalani has had 2 recruiting classes at BYU. He has been touted as a recruiting guru. Why then are the players on the team getting worse, instead of better? And does he not recruit linemen?

I wanna say I agree, but has he really had 2 full recruiting classes? For the first one wasn't he a brand new coach and those were recruits already offered by Bronco?

By all traditional counting he's had 2 full recruiting classes. He had more time than most new head coaches get for their first recruiting class. Now, being at BYU, with the mission thing, that means his first recruits should start coming home right before next season.

Mars wrote:

We don't have the right horses. Our offensive lineman can't run block, and are getting beat play after play on straight four man rushes.



You can't run a pro offense if you can't run. You completely maim the playaction if defenses don't respect your running ability and play a man with zone on top.

Kalani has had 2 recruiting classes at BYU. He has been touted as a recruiting guru. Why then are the players on the team getting worse, instead of better? And does he not recruit linemen?

He has had one, unless you count the time he got made a head coach late, and stepped in a few weeks before players signed their NLI's, and most had already committed well up to that point.



I don't.



He does recruit lineman. The Freshman he recruited are either on missions, or on the two deep.

Mars wrote:

Depends on your definition. Bronco left before the bowl game, so Kalani had about 2 months before the kids signed with him.

So you are counting the time that he wasn't even at BYU as time that he should have been recruiting?



Makes sense.



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For those keeping score, Kalani was hired December 19, which is 46 days before NLI signing day (February 3rd, 2016).



46 days (less if you include holidays and quiet and dead periods) to try and get a full roster of recruits especially tailored to your new offense, which requires completely different personnel?



Also considering that most of these guys have verballed to a team for months now, and that you have almost zero game time to go and watch them play. How much football is played in January in Utah? (The answer is none).

Kalani was already a college football coach, and he was already out recruiting, so it's not like he was at home on the couch the 10 months prior. He already had targets and relationships, he just had to convince them to swap along with him to Provo. So I'll count it, especially since transfers can come long after signing day, but I understand those who might not.