The Problem with being Family

"Welcome to the Family" was the pre-season theme.



Here's the problem with football being a " family." You can't fire your brother. You can't fire your sister. You can't fire your mom, dad, cousins, etc. You may be able to distance yourself from them, but you can't fire them and in many cases you have to endure and accommodate them.



By viewing his staff as "family," Sitake has put himself in a box. Football is more business than family. Football, especially as a HC requires you to fire people.



Some years ago, a CEO of mine got up in a company meeting and said, "I love the culture of our company. I love the closeness we have. But we are not a family. People that are not performing will be fired."



Sitake is in over his head. He needs to run this team as though he were a CEO not a father. Detmer, Cahoon, Mahe, etc. are not his brothers.

Completely, agree. What I've been saying since last year when the flaws were visible but not exactly as plain to see as the first few games this year.

Treating the staff as family is fine--as long as you also have accountability. So far this year we haven't seen any accountability for the coaching staff.

Fido wrote:

Treating the staff as family is fine--as long as you also have accountability. So far this year we haven't seen any accountability for the coaching staff.

Or the players.

There are functional families and dysfunction al families. The BYU football team is dysfunctional right now.

Is it bad to admit out loud that I'm kind of hoping he takes the family-themed approach of his mentor Gary Anderson and just quits at this point?

snoscythe wrote:

Is it bad to admit out loud that I'm kind of hoping he takes the family-themed approach of his mentor Gary Anderson and just quits at this point?

Living in the Portland area, Gary Anderson made big news here. Gary not only resigned but gave up his salary. Oregon State is a tough place to coach—like Provo.



My heart breaks for these coaches. I love them all. But I think there was simply too much inexperience on the staff. They did ok last year , but they didn’t have the challenges that happened this year.



I don’t know how they get control. I agree Sno starting over May be the best solution.

I was against the Sitake hire from the beginning, but I was hoping that he would be a good coach especially after I saw his personality in the media. He is an extremely likeable person and it is too bad that he has turned out to be a horrible head coach. Maybe we could get coach Anderson to come coach the defense for us for the rest of the year, maybe we would actually stop some of the horrible teams we have left on our schedule. My end of the year prediction? The offensive staff with the exception of Empey is fired at the end of the year, Sitake remains HC, Tuiaki remains Dcoordinator and we give it another shot next year with similar results. One more End of the year prediction, Bronco Mendenhall is hired to replace Anderson at OSU.

frdbtr wrote:
One more End of the year prediction, Bronco Mendenhall is hired to replace Anderson at OSU.

Given Bronco's history with OSU, I'd bet they would love to have him.

frdbtr wrote:

My end of the year prediction? The offensive staff with the exception of Empey is fired at the end of the year...

What in the world has Empey done to deserve not getting the ax? In my mind he's one of the first to go. I hope Ty gets reassigned to QB coach and we bring in a competent OC for TY to learn the ropes behind. I would gladly welcome Crowton back in that role. I think we take a strong look at Anderson as DC, and Tuiaki back to LB coach and Kafusi to DL coach.

ABYUFAN wrote:

My end of the year prediction? The offensive staff with the exception of Empey is fired at the end of the year...

What in the world has Empey done to deserve not getting the ax? In my mind he's one of the first to go. I hope Ty gets reassigned to QB coach and we bring in a competent OC for TY to learn the ropes behind. I would gladly welcome Crowton back in that role. I think we take a strong look at Anderson as DC, and Tuiaki back to LB coach and Kafusi to DL coach.

I agree but according to everyone in the media the offensive line has been good this year so I doubt it will happen. I want them all gone. I want a clean slate. This level of failure is not corrected without a major change.

If the offensive line was good, BYU would rush for more than 89.1 yds per game and rank higher than 127th out of 130 teams.

Woody3715 wrote:

If the offensive line was good, BYU would rush for more than 89.1 yds per game and rank higher than 127th out of 130 teams.

At the 30,000 foot level. I agree. BUT any team can stop a run if they put enough people in the box and even a good OL cannot overcome that. So there has to be some respect with the passing game and I have not seen that too much this year. And if the only passing game you seem to have is 2-4 yard passes, well that compounds the problem in my estimation. My only point is that it is very hard to run your way out of a bad offense.

BoiseBYU wrote:

If the offensive line was good, BYU would rush for more than 89.1 yds per game and rank higher than 127th out of 130 teams.

At the 30,000 foot level. I agree. BUT any team can stop a run if they put enough people in the box and even a good OL cannot overcome that. So there has to be some respect with the passing game and I have not seen that too much this year. And if the only passing game you seem to have is 2-4 yard passes, well that compounds the problem in my estimation. My only point is that it is very hard to run your way out of a bad offense.

I get that but I have not seen anything in the Oline that leads me to believe that they are actually good at anything. It's not like they are providing a ton of time to the QB this year. Many of the bad throws come on a hurried throw or a batted ball. The line is not good at run blocking AND not good at pass protection. They're just not that good.

BoiseBYU wrote:

If the offensive line was good, BYU would rush for more than 89.1 yds per game and rank higher than 127th out of 130 teams.

At the 30,000 foot level. I agree. BUT any team can stop a run if they put enough people in the box and even a good OL cannot overcome that. So there has to be some respect with the passing game and I have not seen that too much this year. And if the only passing game you seem to have is 2-4 yard passes, well that compounds the problem in my estimation. My only point is that it is very hard to run your way out of a bad offense.

That failure of the passing scheme really showed up in the ECU game. They would throw a short pass for 4-6 yards. BYU would throw a short pass ... at or behind the LOS ... and when we were aggressive we'd go down field for 2-3 yards on a pass. BUT, in the 2-minute drill we moved the ball (generally) with sideline passes.



Unless you've got a run game where the RB's are hitting 10-20yd/carry average, the pass game MUST extend the field, or you get jammed like the Cougars are ...

ABYUFAN wrote:

Woody3715 wrote:

If the offensive line was good, BYU would rush for more than 89.1 yds per game and rank higher than 127th out of 130 teams.

At the 30,000 foot level. I agree. BUT any team can stop a run if they put enough people in the box and even a good OL cannot overcome that. So there has to be some respect with the passing game and I have not seen that too much this year. And if the only passing game you seem to have is 2-4 yard passes, well that compounds the problem in my estimation. My only point is that it is very hard to run your way out of a bad offense.

I get that but I have not seen anything in the Oline that leads me to believe that they are actually good at anything. It's not like they are providing a ton of time to the QB this year. Many of the bad throws come on a hurried throw or a batted ball. The line is not good at run blocking AND not good at pass protection. They're just not that good.

I’m no expert, but I’ve thought the pass protection has been more than adequate. A number of bad passes I’ve seen are just bad passes. I defer to others on pass protection, but I don’t think our QBs are being sacked at a worse or higher rate than other years.

Opposing teams have 14 sacks through 8 games this year.



Last year, through 8 games, opponents had 16 sacks.

Two years ago it was 20.

Three years ago it was 26.

Four years ago it was 24.

Five years ago it was 22.

Six years ago it was 6.



So this, protection wise, is a pretty good OL. Or so it seems.

SpiffCoug wrote:

Opposing teams have 14 sacks through 8 games this year.



Last year, through 8 games, opponents had 16 sacks.

Two years ago it was 20.

Three years ago it was 26.

Four years ago it was 24.

Five years ago it was 22.

Six years ago it was 6.



So this, protection wise, is a pretty good OL. Or so it seems.

So just over two a game, and we've been in obvious pass situations for the majority of all of those games. - I guess that's just me seeing problems in the Oline that weren't there. Perhaps the problems I "saw" were confirmation bias. I stand corrected. This teams has enough actual problems that they don't need others making some up too. Empey stays....

I've been pleased with the oline this year. It's the lone bright spot on the team.