OT: Bronco starting to get under people's skin at Virginia?

Gunk wrote:

Bronco just killed his career. He's trying to use these stats as justification for not making the NFL a priority for players, for future failure to get players into the NFL, and failure to recruit highly touted players. Remember, Bronco favors grit over athleticism.



18 year olds have big dreams. He's being a dream crusher. For some the dose of "reality" works. For most, particularly gifted athletes, Bronco's sales pitch is a deterrent.



At BYU, his "realism" was probably received fairly well. BYU recruits tend to prioritize family, health, and longevity more so than their peers at non-LDS schools. When you're looking to get married at 21 after 2 years as a missionary, someone telling you that the dream you had as an 18 year old is actually fool's gold probably resonates quite well. "Oh...playing in the NFL is bad for me!? Thanks, Bronco, for saving me from a life of drugs and waywardness."

Bronco is trying to get his kids to come up with contingency plans in case they don't make the NFL. The statistics of players who make it to the NFL from college are staggering. Plan for a non NFL future and you will be successful whether you make it to the pro's or not.

Bronco to the best players he can recruit: I wouldn't worry about the NFL if I were you; I can't even get college-level players to commit to play for me! But yeah, you all suck and have no talent.

frdbtr wrote:

Bronco is trying to get his kids to come up with contingency plans in case they don't make the NFL. The statistics of players who make it to the NFL from college are staggering. Plan for a non NFL future and you will be successful whether you make it to the pro's or not.

I believe that Bronco's intention is good. However, his methodology is bad. Certainly there are ways to communicate the need for a plan B to playing in the NFL for his players and recruits without pulling fake statistics out of thin air about the horrors of playing in the NFL and how it ruins your life. There are plenty of ex-NFL players who aren't divorced, broken, drug addicts. Wouldn't a better pitch be that Virginia supports players pursuing their dream to play in the NFL and will do everything we can to help make that happen. But that it is also important to plan ahead and be prepared for whatever the player's future might be. You can help prepare kids for their future without limiting their ambitions or telling them half-truths.

An 18 year old has big dreams. Yes, the vast majority of them are unrealistic. To a room full of adults that understand the limitations of life, Bronco's message rings true. To an 18 year old with visions of grandeur, Bronco's message is deflating and discouraging. Emotion and getting players to play bigger than themselves is a huge part of football, he's not winning points in this category.



His words will be used against him by other schools. Players will Google him and read the articles. He's just made it harder for himself.

I love all the predictions of Bronco's demise, especially for a team that he took back to a bowl game during year 2 of his tenure after they hadn't been to one in years. Unbelievable how people on this board are hoping for him to fail, probably to make themselves feel better about BYU's current problems.

I don't want him to fail. I want him to succeed. Don't mistake critique for a hope of demise.



Bronco is a brilliant coach. I wish he stayed at BYU. But he still has his faults and he appears to be making some of the same mistakes, making it harder for him to succeed.

Gunk wrote:

I don't want him to fail. I want him to succeed. Don't mistake critique for a hope of demise.



Bronco is a brilliant coach. I wish he stayed at BYU. But he still has his faults and he appears to be making some of the same mistakes, making it harder for him to succeed.

Exactly.



I love all the predictions of Bronco’s idealized approach, especially for a style that will most likely get him admirably back to another bowl game while unneccesarly alienating key stakeholders and creating problems for himself.

Unbelievable how people on this board are hoping for him to succeed, probably to make them feel better about themselves and their opinion/posts that somehow we “people on this board” just ran him right out of town and that $3mm a year had nothing to do with his decision; and that somehow we who predicted Bronco’s demise early neither wanted him to fail nor had heads in the sand in seeing that his “[words] on the wall” actually mean something and would lead to his demise.